But before ladies and gentlemen, I
know it's a couple of minutes after seven,
I just want to let you know that we've got a document that we're
trying to get into the public record before the meeting.
And so it'll just be a couple of minutes.
So please go ahead.
Covers Yeah.
Yeah I'm one of the I know.
I, I don't know about i don't know
if they were lawyers I think it, I do.
We don't get to know either One of Yeah, they they you know
and they say.
And so how many copies.
Probably start with about the probably
go from about more coming up clearing up you Yeah Yeah
And I think to put a memo together.
Yeah i'm gonna talk about the background yeah
How I know what we're talking about our
And it was in the past, you know.
You know Richard I guess you could start with that.
I go to whatever Oh, yeah.
We printed out all the wildfire stuff,
right through 47 or whatever.
The first year i can very long for You and I Of that
provides for financing for customers.
Yeah I also like to I, I get that.
I mean, that's what I have like, and that's One, you know.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah.
We have a software, right?
Yeah I, I Yeah right, right, right.
Every you in you got to ten years in a way
to have got a ten days in the waiting
like you know or you are working now.
OK 90 one I don't know Oh listen.
So, so this is my favorite time So I always All right.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen Hi.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Hello, and welcome to our regular city council meeting
today, August 19, 2026.
I'd like to call the meeting to order.
And advise everyone that this meeting is being recorded
and the recording will be made available on the city website.
Would you please rise and join me
in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands.
One nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all Thank you for for it.
Can you please proceed with the roll call
and the required administrative members of the public
may participate in this meeting in person
at the location listed on the agenda or via remote attendance.
Using the information listed on the agenda.
Public attendees participating remotely
are automatically muted and are not viewable on camera.
I will now call the Roll Council member Aftab Present.
Fitzsimons Present.
Zell Present.
Vice Mayor.
While you present Mayor Page Present.
We have a quorum and the agenda was posted on August 13.
Thank you.
Earlier this evening the city council
held a closed session on conference with legal counsel,
with regarding anticipated litigation.
There is no reportable action from this meeting We also
held a joint session with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's
Office, and Captain Valenzuela will
you please share a brief summary of your updates?
Good evening, Mayor.
Vice.
Mayor.
Council members.
Captain.
So with the sheriff's office.
Thank you again for hosting us for a closed session.
As you know, the sheriff was not able to attend,
but we had Undersheriff Mike Doty, Lieutenant John Flowers,
Sergeant Karlheinz and Sergeant Stephen Perotti
and myself in attendance Sergeant Karlheinz
and Sergeant Stephen Brody are part of our sheriff's emergency
response team or a search team, which
is our version of a Swat team.
They provide the small short presentation
that makes up our team, make up some of the selection process
that they go to, the types of incidents they respond to,
and then some of their equipment that they utilize.
Additionally, I presented to the Council
some of the types of calls that occur in Saratoga
provided some information.
Our response times and gave you a brief overview
of crime statistics and the city.
Thank you.
Any comments from the council?
Thank you very much, Captain.
Thank you.
Your and your team service to us.
Up, we have oral communications on non agenda items.
This is an opportune city.
And we invite any member of the public
to speak on any item that is not on tonight's agenda
The council is typically prohibited from addressing
or answering any questions raised during that time
but we may give some direction to staff regarding that.
So if there's any speakers, please call them up,
and then we go from there.
If you would like to address the city council on an item
and not on the agenda, and you have not submitted a speaker's
slip, now is the time to do so.
Our first speaker is Bill Dalton Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor
and council members.
My comments tonight relate to the vacant assistant city
manager position.
And the city budget.
It's my contention the vacant position should not
be filled for certain for sure.
Certainly not until we resolved the city's budget budget issue.
And maybe never the city's operated several times
in the past without an assistant city manager.
Most recently since Matt Morley left
and Leslie was promoted to acting city manager.
Before that, when Crystal left, until Leslie
was hired to take her place So I ask that the position not
be filled.
Maybe never.
I thank you for your time and service.
Thanks, Bill Next is Jackie Holmes
To do you need to How about now?
Great.
Yes.
So I know it's a busy night.
I wanted to share for something that is an immediate action
item.
We're requesting that staff be directed on.
We have a major enforcement issue
with our zoning code It's harming the vibrant village
that we want.
We're asking for this action.
Members of the Saratoga Vitality Neighbors
have brought up before the need for critical mass
in the village, critical mass of varied businesses
and of pedestrians, shopping and dining.
I know you all know that I'm mentioning it
for all the people watching as well.
Foot traffic makes the village attractive to new businesses
and keeps existing businesses alive and able
to invest in the community That is
why it is common best practice for zoning
to require that ground floor storefronts are active foot
traffic oriented retail and dining businesses.
The good news is our general plan, our village design
standards and our municipal code all specify that.
We're very happy about that.
However, the enforcement issue is
that that is not being enforced, that many building owners who
are very good people.
I'm sure, and in some cases, I know
have rented ground floor storefronts
without a conditional use permit allowing
them to do so to offices, which do not fit that criteria.
I would like us to address that enforcement
It becomes more complicated when a tenant is in place.
It's still not impossible, but it's more complicated right now.
There's one specific storefront with a beautiful patio,
a prime aspect of our village.
It is next to pop house.
And I would request that council direct staff
to take proactive conversations with the landlord
to discuss what our municipal code is so that someone doesn't
come in non-conforming.
And then we all shrug her shoulders
and say, What can we do there?
Already settled in.
What we can do is speak in advance.
That's my request.
There is a business private office
non conforming right next door with a beautiful patio that
sits empty Again, I have nothing personal about that business,
but it does not conform.
It does not support good urban planning
of active use, pedestrian traffic and businesses.
So we would ask again, that council speak with staff
about taking action.
Saratoga vitality Neighbors.
If anyone has any questions as can
be reached at Saratoga Vitality at gmail.com.
We have 467 people who are on that list
and engaging in different levels,
and we're trying to support our businesses.
Is the energy and the community that we all talk about wanting.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Jackie.
Next is Gloria Keough Hello Hi, everyone.
Good evening.
I echo Jackie's concerns, especially
for those two beautiful spots down at the end.
Next to Pop house.
Those are allowing that office to take that spot was a crime.
I don't know who allowed that.
How that if it has a conditional use permit or if not,
I don't know how that happened.
But we live in California Beautiful weather.
We should be sitting outside and enjoying the weather,
enjoying a drink.
Food.
And we have an office.
Why is that?
We have rules don't we?
Let's follow them.
That's all.
Thank you.
All.
You This is self.
It's for someone who lives on Ronnie.
So My name is a fraction.
I'm a resident And the taxpayers.
I'm here to because our community has
reached a point here where we need
help from a city of Saratoga.
What's really coming to college district
is moving forward with a wellness center,
which is a large the footprint structure.
One of the largest corporate structure in our entire city,
using funds from the Major W about $125 million.
This is a large fund and build on the track field, which
is in the western valley where Major W was
a presented to all of us.
The major purpose was a presented.
I ran to prepare students for 21st century careers,
including stamps, nursing, health care,
and veterinary retreat, which we can all go to Look
at the replacing of the SLA track was mentioned,
but only as a support item.
Amanda So item in the funding resident
has therefore asking for basically accountability
questions.
How does this a major awareness center project at this location,
at this scale, 50 was in the party
that a voter was asked to support, approve.
We have not been silent So many of our residents
have attended the last the three board meeting
to the trust the meetings ask the district to answer.
And that dialogue instead the project was to move the rapidly.
The track is proximity 50 years old.
The demolishing that case order, etc.
facility necessary means disturbing existing service
and the underlying the lying the soil
drainage and the potentially and aging infrastructure
We are here ask a simple question.
What environmental testing and the construction control
was performed.
Therefore, this site was disturbed
and the world that information be made public residents
should have what assessment.
There has been done regarding dust runoff construction
impact and the material being removed We are asking the city
and council.
And the city attorney to help to ensure
that a major public project affecting many of the Saratoga
resident proceeded was a transparent state Accountability
and a proper environmental diligence.
Thank you for your help.
Thank you, Frank.
Is Matt Borden Hello again.
I'm also going to talk about the track.
This is if you're not aware, the West Valley track
was closed on Thursday and they ceremonially
ripped up 40 yards of it to justify putting up the fence
without any public notice.
And within and in.
Keep keeping it as quiet as possible.
West Valley Mission Board of Trustees.
They managed to pull this off.
And this whole issue, in my opinion,
comes down to two words and six pages of bonds
W literature the two words bracketed by commas
are track replacement.
And a problem is that the West Valley Mission Board of Trustees
is asking these two words to do too much.
And even reasonable person would take track replacement
to mean resurfacing the track, which is what
happened from time to time.
But they asked me to believe the track replacement really
means replacing the track and destroying it.
What they and all the voters for some reason
approve that the destruction of this track,
the measure bond, the measure W bond language
does not support this.
This line of thinking.
This violates the plain meaning rule,
the baseline rule that words in a statute
should be read according to their ordinary everyday meaning
rather than stretch to accommodate outside goals.
Furthermore, as Frank mentioned this
is the largest structure on their campus
and will be the largest building in the city.
Potentially directly on top of this, this athletic site
this track, the college recently pivoted to this location
in late 2025.
And because of this late pivot and Rush timeline,
they completely bypassed the project
specific environmental impact report
that is required under call under the California
Environmental Quality Act.
So I'm asking the city Council to do two things.
First, as representative of the taxpayers who voted to approve,
measure W, can you reach out to the Michigan College
Board of Trustees and demand accountability
for why they chose to misread the measure?
W language.
And so misuse the $698 million of bond funds appropriated.
They have blown off similar requests from the public,
from and from many of the citizens,
and they feel they only have to answer to the bond oversight
committee, which they themselves appointed.
I believe that you might have a little bit more luck.
And you can do a good job of representing us in this regard.
Second, I would like to direct the city attorney
to review the college's sikua, the college fornia Environmental
Quality Act avoidance and pass an emergency
resolution demanding an immediate halt to all site
disturbances until a comprehensive environmental and
toxicological studies are conducted and made public
as an interested party representing the community.
The City of Saratoga has the legal standing
to challenge the college's secure exemptions Thank you.
Thank you, Matt.
Next is Stan Boghosian Can you hear me?
Yep.
Yes, I got a question that probably
would like to ask if you would refer to your IT person
on staff.
I have been getting blocked from the city website.
I have a VPN service and I've tested
it to see if it's, in fact, not running or whatever.
I've gone through all of the tests and sometimes I'm blocked,
sometimes I'm not.
And when I was blocked, I decided
to go to one of the commercial sites that I know blocks me.
If I don't have My own address down.
It's a commercial that a lot of commercial sites track.
I just want to make sure that the city isn't tracking people.
That's all it's got to be easy access.
Thank you.
Thank you, Stan.
I have no more speakers, so it's okay.
Is there anyone else here that would like to come forward?
See?
None.
Thank you very much.
Is there any direction, the staff.
OK Then we'll move on to.
So a couple of announcements that we've got.
First, I'd like to invite folks to join me at the pop House
Coffee, which was talked about a little bit ago at 14 six,
12 Big Basin Way this Friday August 21st, from 9 to 10.
This is coffee with the mayor.
It's an opportunity to share your thoughts and questions
with the mayor.
We have a usually a kind of a nice group of people.
And we try not to overdo the conversation with any one topic,
but get a lot of ideas in there.
And then i can do some follow up later.
So come enjoy some coffee conversation.
A great new location in the village and that's
help another business person succeed.
Next up, I'd like to invite everyone to our 70th birthday
celebration.
Gather your friends, your family It's
going to be a great party at Wildwood Park on Saturday,
starting around noon with the musical.
Actually start a little bit before that.
Well, people are walking in We'll
have live music from Marc Keyboard and his brother
and then the headliner is Days on the Green.
If anybody knows them, they're a wonderful band.
They play some great music.
And I think you'll have to make sure you got your dancing
shoes on.
There'll be some family friendly,
friendly activities hosted by the Los Gatos Saratoga
Recreation Group, a petting zoo.
I was at the park today.
And this little guy comes up because what kind of animals
are going to get?
What what do you bring in?
He said, I'm not bringing my cat because I
don't have one anymore.
But there's going to be lots of cool things
to do There'll be some food trucks and are beer
and wine will also be available for purchase sponsored
by the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce.
So this community event is a chance
to create lasting memories to really enjoy our city
and celebrate the seven years that we've been in existence
and did not become partisan Jose Although based on some
of the things on our agenda, you know, you know, we don't
know what's going to happen.
So I welcome you all to join us.
It's going to be a good time And then
last of all, commission openings,
we do have some openings in our commissions, the parks and Rec
Commission, library and Public Arts Commission, the Heritage
Preservation Commission and the Traffic Safety Commission.
Applications are due for the Parks and Recreation
and the Library and Public Arts Commission this Friday,
August 21.
And the HPC, The Heritage Preservation
and the Traffic Safety commissions
are due in on January 22, 2027.
So if you're interested in getting involved with the city
and helping to shape Saratoga future
this is an opportunity we welcome
you to apply and spend some time and contribute to the city.
The applications and whatnot are on the search to the website
Saratoga Dot C8 US.
Any council members have any announcements you'd like to make
?
Seeing none, we'll move forward.
Our first item tonight is a ceremonial item.
We're going to recognize the recipients of the 2026
Annual Community Awards.
These are awards given every year
for outstanding service, dedication, and contributions
to the Saratoga community.
Well, will Captain Matthew Freeman,
Deputy Alexander package cody Link is more must look
and Tyler Taylor in the sassy team.
Please join me on stage and we're going to do
is going to have you all come up big claus uh i never
could do that.
So I'm jealous already each year the Santa Clara County Fire
Department nominates a member of its department
to be recognized for outstanding service
to the Saratoga community this year,
we are honored to recognize fire Captain Matthew Freeman, who's
dedicated more than two decades to serving our community.
Most of you don't know this, but Captain Freeman's connection
to Saratoga began in 2001 as a paid call firefighter
fighter with the Saratoga Fire District.
I barely remember that, Don't you?
Yeah.
There you go.
He became a career firefighter.
The following year.
He went on to earn his paramedic credentials
and was promoted to fire captain in 2019.
And today leads his crew from the downtown Saratoga Fire
station Beyond his daily service,
Captain Freeman has shared his expertise
in areas including rope, rescue, vehicle stabilization
and extra caution, while also helping
to train the next generation of firefighters.
Captain Freeman's dedication, leadership, and commitment
to the Saratoga community truly exemplify
the spirit of this award.
Please join me in recognizing fire Captain Matthew
Freeman as our 2026 firefighter of the year.
Thank you.
Yeah, You want to you want to say a couple of words first?
All right.
I'll hold on a second.
Never give up an opportunity.
Hold the Mike.
I think my crew knows this very well.
First, I just wanted to thank the city council for this award.
It's been an honor to serve the Saratoga community for a better
part of 24 years.
I've had the opportunity to meet some amazing people
in our community throughout my career,
including our own mayor and vice mayor,
as they've come through the station I want to say thank you
to County Fire for the nomination
and our fire chiefs for their leadership
in providing opportunities for growth.
I have to recognize my crew sitting.
All right, here in the front, two rows here
that has been so rewarding for me to come to work each tour.
And thank you for the friendship and the support
that you've given me.
I actually want to say thank you to the Santa Clara County
Sheriff's Office.
It's been an honor and a privilege
to work alongside you Thank you.
Your professionalism and customer service
to provide the community is immeasurable.
It's been an honor.
Lastly I want to thank my wife for supporting
me every step of the way.
We spent more than half of our lives support apart,
and when I come home, you let me ramble on about forcible entry,
rope, rescue, firefighting strategies and surfing, no less.
Again, you're the amazing city council.
Thank you for the recognition and thank you.
And now we'll we'll get a couple of photos
and also stay up here for a second OK?
All right.
We got the Q. Thank you so much, Governor.
Thank you for taking.
Thank you.
Yeah All right.
Next up, we're going to recognize
the deputy of the year.
So will Deputy Alexander Rockets please join us up here
in front of Center?
But I say, I always have to check if I got the name spelled.
Sounded correctly each year, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's
Office nominates a member of its department
to be recognized for outstanding service
again to the Saratoga community this year,
we're pleased to recognize Deputy Alexander Rockets, who
has served as a patrol deputy with the West Valley Patrol
Division for the past five years.
Deputy Rocket has consistently demonstrated an exceptional work
ethic professionalism and a team first approach
during a particularly demanding year.
When the sheriff's office provided significant staffing
support for both the NFL's Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup.
And apparently on Saturday for the Saratoga 70th birthday party
here remain committed to providing high quality law
enforcement services to Saratoga.
Deputy Rockets also serves as an operator with the sheriff's
office Sheriff's office, unmanned Aerial System,
a program using drone technology to provide
critical aerial support during incidents
and responding to everything from a medical emergency
and critical incidents to the fraud investigations and welfare
checks.
He is known for his calm demeanor, empathy,
and his respect for those he serves.
He's also achieved perfect attendance for the last two
years, demonstrating an exceptional commitment
to his duties.
Please join me in recognizing Deputy Alex Rockets as our 2020
sixth Deputy of the Year And so you
want to say a couple of words a thank you
to the city council of Saratoga.
I'd like to accept this award on behalf of the men and women
with whom I have the privilege of serving
every day as a deputy sheriff.
The work we do is never accomplished alone
Every call, every challenge, every success is a team effort.
And i'm honored to share this award
with my family, my colleagues and everyone
who supports us along the way.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Well-deserved And now it's photo time Congratulations.
Second from the city, Saratoga City Hall right now
is the safest place to be in this county.
With Cody Sterling.
Please come forward So the Chamber of Commerce
every year recognizes an outstanding member
of our business community whose work
goes beyond their profession to help strengthen and promote
Saratoga.
This year's honoree, Cody Turley is an accomplished realtor
with Compass Silicon Valley.
But its connection to Saratoga goes far beyond his career.
Born and raised in Saratoga I understand
in a little room in your house, Cody takes great pride
in helping people discover our community
and helping long time residents achieve their real estate goals.
His professional success is also impressive,
with Cody and his team ranking among the top 1.5% of realtors
in Saratoga, according to Real trends.
Cody has a deep commitment to giving back.
In 2019, when he was recognized by the mayor,
then as Volunteer of the Year and he's
continued to be an enthusiastic supporter of Saratoga
events and organized sessions.
He co-founded the Saratoga Classic and Cool Car Show
and has supported the stroke.
Andy Kane, Village Music in the Park
and the Village Scarecrow event He's also
helped raise thousands of dollars for the cancer care
point for several years by lending
his talents as an auctioneer at their events.
Cody's energy enthusiasm and dedication
to promoting Saratoga make him a wonderful example of what
it means to be a community minded businessperson.
We congratulate you, Cody, and thank you very much
One of the most where you want to
So I don't want to give a realtor the mic.
I just want to say I'm honored to receive this.
Thank you so much, Chuck.
And to all the city council members as well.
I love Saratoga.
Saratoga at heart.
Uh, go.
Saratoga High.
Say yes And it's just a pleasure to be in this community
and to meet the people here and to help people move in
and introduce them to what Saratoga really
is, what it means.
And the beautiful community that we have here.
And so thank you so much again And yes, that's
Joe Toga Next up is our Citizen of the Year.
Well, it's marmots.
Please come on up each year.
Again, the Chamber of Commerce recognizes
our Citizen of the year.
There's a whole nomination process.
And by the grace of God, he won.
We're this year's honoree is More Music
has been an active part of the Saratoga community
for many, many years.
He's lived in Saratoga, this sober neighborhood,
and has worked in Saratoga Village for the past 19 years.
He currently serves on the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce
Board of Directors and regularly volunteers
at both chamber events and community events.
His community involvement also includes five years
on the Saratoga Country Club Board of Directors
supporting Saratoga High High School
Athletics and the Falcons Football and baseball program,
and helping local organize local sports and recreation
activities.
He also provides complimentary notary services, a monthly.
But there's got to be an ad in here somewhere.
But it's true.
If you live in Saratoga, go visit him
He's a free notary right here.
So he helps keep our community connected through the Monday
missives, which many of you may receive and provides
announcements and information with hundreds
of Saratoga residents.
And through the restoration of his family's
historic Victorian home in Saratoga Village.
He has shown a deep appreciation for Saratoga, his history
and character, his ma's willingness to give his time,
support local organizations and help others
is a wonderful example of community spirit.
Please join me in recognizing Is marmots
like as our 2026 citizen of the Year Appreciate it, buddy.
And the like decision.
Oh, sure.
Thank you.
You.
Uh, thanks Chuck.
Mayor and Vice Mayor and council members.
It's truly humbling standing here
I. I appreciate it very much.
Saratoga is my home, and any time I can help, I am.
I'm honored.
And.
And this award goes to everybody all the citizens here, not
only me.
Um, and I'm sure there are some that deserve it more,
but this year, I guess it to me the.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone Thanks.
Hang on.
We're going to get a photo and finally, we'll
recognize the community organization of the year.
Well, Tyler Taylor in the Sassy team.
Please join the city council at the center of the stage.
Thanks.
All your friends and know i got the whole team heroes bounce out
here.
This.
I just want you guys.
Come on over here Yeah, I'll count it out.
Yeah, Yeah.
So each year, the mayor of Saratoga
recognizes an individual or an organization that
has made a notable contribution to the Saratoga
community this year, I'm pleased to recognize
the successful aging solutions and community consulting,
otherwise known as Sassy two A as our 2026
Organization of the Year, Sassy has
continued to expand its programs and services
to meet the evolving needs of older adults.
Caregivers and families this year,
Sassy launched several innovative programs,
including the state's first Community Caregiver Certificate
program through senior guided pathways at West Valley College,
the sassy certified Farmer's Market and the sassy Grocery
rescue Program.
The organization also completed renovation plans
for its adult care center in partnership
with the West Valley College Zilker School of Design.
Sozzi is also provided valuable educational opportunities
for the community, including property assessment
presentations, senior fraud prevention seminars its health
and nutrition seminars series and through the expansion
of the West Valley Outlook to New communities.
Sozzi is helping even more residents across our county
through these programs, partnerships
and the continued commitment to older adults and families.
Sassy has made a tremendous commitment to all of us,
especially here in Saratoga, where they started.
My favorite is the adult care center.
It is one of my all time favorites.
I'm so glad we're still able to fund it a little bit.
And congratulations, Tyler, and thank you so much.
Thank you very much for.
Thank you.
I'll keep my remarks brief because the folks who really
make sassy what it is are the folks that you see up here
with me.
I do want to say, though, that it's an honor of a lifetime
to be able to serve older adults, to serve this community,
to partner with the fire department in the sheriff's
department, all the other community
members that we work with to help us all get older
successfully.
And even though we did change our name to successful aging
solutions and community consulting
to do business outside of Saratoga,
our legal entity name is and Forever
will be the Saratoga area senior Coordinating Council.
So those are our roots.
This is a great organization.
And if it's okay with the mayor, I'd
like a couple of my people to say some words.
They'll keep it brief.
Sure.
Sam Samuel Wheeler, Operations Manager
Thank you, Mayor and council members for your support
and providing this awards for organization.
It's an incredible honor for us, me and my team
to be able to serve the growing older adult
population in our community.
They made our towns.
What they are.
And now we are able to give back to them.
So it's just really a joy and honor as a third generation
resident of Santa Clara County, I'm
lucky to be able to serve the place that I grew up in
and stay tuned.
We've got a lot more coming the rest of this year and next,
so keep your eyes on Sassy Oh, that person, Ludmila, this
is our dog care center.
Assistant manager Luke Miller Not.
Thank you, everyone, for coming on.
My name is Luke Miller.
I have something written down here
so if you come and visit the Saratoga Dog Care Center,
your older loved ones will immediately feel seen and cared
for by our team You will meet Mary, who teaches us
what true hospitality looks like.
She she is exact the kind of person
I personally would hope to meet when
moving into a new neighborhood.
You will also meet Denise is Denise,
who is excellent with participant
engagement and Tyler, you set the tone
that allows this team to do its best work.
Thank you for your leadership It's changed.
I've learned more about myself working at Sassy
and it's changed me for the best.
Thank you Thank you.
And so first, we're get a photo here,
and then we'll bring up, everybody and come and let
us know if you need us to merge Thank you.
Now, I'd like to bring up the other winners.
The other recipients.
If you all could come up, we'll get a big old group picture.
You know Thanks a lot, Alex.
What makes you so you know I have them.
All right.
I think I could get into you office.
I think if I even know that If there's
any member of the public who would like
to speak on that last item.
Now would be the time to come forward Yeah.
And we hope to see you all on Saturday
All right, ladies and gentlemen, if we could please clear
the chambers Okay.
Thank you very much.
And congratulate agents to our 2026 recipients.
The next item is our consent calendar,
which contains items typically a routine and typically
non-controversial business items.
In this section can be acted in one motion
unless removed by a mayor or a council member.
And I would at this point like to remind the folks here
in the audience and the folks online
that we will take a break every couple of hours
just so that we can refresh a little bit
And I just want to get that out now
because I'll forget to say it until later.
So any member of the public may speak
on an item on the consent calendar at this time or request
that the mayor remove an item from the consent
calendar for discussion.
If you're requesting an item to be removed from the consent
calendar please give your comments on the item
and inform the City Council what you would like that,
you would like.
Why you would like the item removed.
Public speakers are limited to three minutes.
Brett, can you please explain the public comment process
and announce the first speaker If you would like
to address the City Council on the consent calendar
and you have not already submitted a speaker slip,
now is the time to do so.
If you are attending the zoom and you
would like to address the City Council on the consent calendar,
now is the time to raise your hand.
First speaker is standing motion I'd like.
Yes, I'd like to.
Um, request that 1.14, which is a sheriff contract,
be removed and discussed.
Um I have a little difficulty understanding.
I looked over the sheriff's contract
and there's a question about overhead costs and state law,
and so on.
I spent a year at Gonzaga law School and contracts
was not one of my strong subjects.
So if maybe the city attorney can help us out
on the explaining what that is and whether we are
in compliance here, thank you.
Well, and that was his comment.
He want to better understand the contract portion of it.
Anybody else for it?
I have no other speaker slips and there are no hands raised.
OK.
Thank you.
Is there any member of the council
would like to pull an item or two?
Tina Marie I'd like to pull item numbers 1.4 and 1.5.
Okay.
Anybody else?
Oh, sorry.
I meant 1.14 and one five.
My apologies.
Typo.
So it's 1.14 and 1.15 not four and five.
14 and 15.
OK.
All right.
If there's no discussion on any of the other items.
And I think, Stan, I think you meant item 1.14, right.
Thank you.
You.
Yeah.
He said correct.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if I made a mistake.
So we'll look for motion on the other items.
Yeah.
All right I'd like to move to adoption.
Susan, Calendar item one.
Point one through 1.13.
I second.
I have a motion and a second On favor.
Please say I. I i any opposed.
Any abstentions.
Motion carries unanimously Okay.
Item 1.1 for the Santa Clara County law enforcement
contract for peanut I have a couple of questions for staff.
I know there has been an ad hoc committee
of the mayors of the three cities City of Saratoga,
city of Cupertino as well as the town of Los Altos
Hills, along with the city managers
and some other senior executive level members of each
of the three cities that have been working with the county
sheriff's office since the beginning of this year.
On this contract just a couple of quick questions here.
Firstly, I really appreciate all the work
that has been done by the Ad hoc committee members.
I know it's been lot more meetings than what we also
attended, so that's deeply appreciated.
From what I understand that the other Two cities, Cupertino
and Los Altos Hills, have not reached a point yet
They are running couple of weeks behind us
where they will be ready to move forward with their contract.
So when all the Three cities got an extension of the timeline
from end of June through end of September 20, 26,
I know I have discussed this with you
city manager Leslie Arroyo, but it
would be good for members of the public
to know why we are moving forward.
Now while the other two cities are waiting
and the second question would be,
I understand that all three city attorneys have reviewed
the contract language until a week ago
and any substantial changes, if they have been made since then,
it would be nice for us to share with our residents.
And the last question slash comment
is that there is an audit report that is in the works.
The draft report has been reviewed by the Ad hoc committee
that is to the audit report is addressing the overheads that
was also alluded to by one of the members, former Mayor Stan
Boghosian, just now.
And my question there would be if they find reductions
in that report that would be applicable to the other cities
because they are a couple of weeks behind us
in terms of signing the contract.
And if we approve the contract tonight, would we, the City
of Saratoga, be able to avail of those reductions and adjustments
in spite of the fact that we may have approved the contract
tonight?
Those are my 3 or 4 questions right there.
Appreciate your answers Thank you.
Thank you.
Very similar for you.
So the first question is to why now you're correct.
We did our contract ended at the end of June, June 30th.
We did get an extension till September 30th.
And in the beginning of July, we did receive a note
from the county office.
And in fact, I have the exact July 7
kind of outlining that we needed to push this
up a little bit more.
And then it was reiterated to us on July 17.
And basically in this note, they were outlining the fact that
because they needed to do to readings at the border
supervisor level, they've got some upcoming border supervisor
meetings in September in order to have that contract executed
by September 30th.
So number one, in order to get a contract executed
through the county we have to first sign it.
And then we then it gets taken to the board of supervisors.
So in this timeline, we I will say
we were surprised that it did push things up for us.
But we were told that they needed to have an agreement
received essentially by August 11th to be considered
for the August 25th board meeting or an agreement received
by August 31st to be considered for the September 1540 Board
of Supervisors meeting.
So those were the two meetings that they're
having is August 25 and September 15.
We needed to have this meeting because we are not meeting today
is the 90 and then we won't meet again until September 2.
So that last kind of timeline was that August 31st,
31st agreement that they needed received by us.
This is going to go on the August 25th board meeting.
They are going to amend their agenda
and add our signed contracts.
Should the Council approve this tonight?
We will sign it tomorrow, and they will put it on the 25th
agenda.
But that is the reason why the timing again, it was surprising.
And it did push all three cities up
and we have chosen to follow through with that request
of timing in terms of contract changes,
I do want to introduce we do have Katherine
Enberg on the line and she is an attorney
and she has also been working closely She's part of our team.
And has been negotiating with the other attorneys,
with the other two cities.
So you're question in terms of, you know, we did last week,
Thursday, we kind of get through all of our red line changes
that we wanted to accomplish.
And we were happy with that.
But I will let Katherine just kind of state
where things left off and how we decided to pursue
this contract in the end.
OK, great.
Thank you for that introduction Leslie,
and for the question from Council,
I did want to just highlight I've
been working with the other city attorneys
and our office worked primarily.
And I want to highlight three aspects of the contract, which
were resolved last week and which allowed us to recommend,
you know, bringing this agreement forward
to council this evening.
One is the issue regarding early termination and who
pays for pro-rata basically how the pro rata shares of the West
Valley substation lease are worked out.
The county has a lease for the West Valley substation A that
runs through November of 2029.
And so one one issue that we needed
to resolve was, well, in the event
that a One of the three cities leaves terminates
prior to that date, how are those costs shared?
And then also, well, what if the county wants
to enter into a new lease and extend the date of that lease
beyond the period of this contract?
So that was, you know, needed to be worked out ultimately,
the parties all agreed on the language in the contract
right now.
And basically does require a city
that leaves that terminates early to pay
his pro rata share through that November 20, 29 date.
However, it does not allow the county to extend that lease
without mutual agreement of the city's.
So that was, I think, a key negotiating point
And I to just like that for you, the other one would
have will just mention is the indemnification section.
The city's basically thought that the current indemnification
language in our in our current contract is good.
And it's protective of the city's
particularly in the event of an excessive force case situation.
And in the county actually had proposed
to change that language.
But then they ultimately agreed to revert back to the language
that we've had in place in our contract for many years.
So that was the second thing I wanted to mention.
And then finally, I'll just mention another change
in the contract that we were satisfied with is a note on.
I think is page two of the contract
that it is subject to government code section 51350.
And actually one of the public commenters asked about that.
And that's a section that's really
protected by both the county and the cities.
It does require the county to pass on cost to the contract
cities.
However, it also says that the county may not
charge overhead head to the cities
that it would incur anyway.
I'm sort of paraphrasing, but that's the idea.
And so the contract.
I mean, basically would be subject to that
regardless because the state law.
But we've made it expressly in the contract
that that is subject to that those provisions
of the government code.
And I would just note that there is
an audit happening and are you know,
it's still underway If that audit reveals
that the county has been charging the contract
cities, any overhead that is not allowed under government code
section 51350.
Well, the contract would basically require a rebalancing
or refund.
Didn't have to would need to be it
would need to be refunded or rolled into, you know,
the next year's payment.
Would that, you know, without express language.
So I guess those are the three primary point negotiating
points.
And with those resolved, we did recommend bringing this forward
to council.
Assuming.
OK.
Thank you so Katherine, I really appreciate that.
Essentially, even if the other two cities
when they sign or approve likely if they approve the contract
language in a couple of weeks, if they find anything else
coming out.
I'm repeating this here in the audit report that would still
be applicable to us.
Part of the language in the contract that is in front of us
tonight Correct.
And per state law as well.
We did.
We did not moralize it in the contract.
Wonderful.
Appreciate that.
Thanks.
And I would just add, Vice Mayor Wiley,
that we do have a draft version of that report.
We are waiting to get it finalized.
It was shared with the county to have them get their perspective.
And just for the sake for the public,
why did we do this audit report?
We did this because of the calculations
that were provided to us initially
we were trying to get a better understanding
as to what we were being charged with the contract.
And so we hired this independent auditor.
This isn't a draft version I did.
One thing I did want to say, though,
is that I did reach out to the county executive yesterday
evening.
And one of the things they did have a chance
to look at that on a report again in draft version.
And he said the county won't be changing,
costing methodology as a result of the audit.
The draft audit did not identify any calculation errors
or technical adjustments, but it did
appear to potentially disagree with categorization
or methodology.
It also continues to say we don't
agree with those observations as a legal or factual matter.
But even assuming they remain in the final audit,
we will not be proposing any changes in our costing
So that was the latest that I did receive last night
from the county executive.
Appreciate sharing that with the public here tonight.
City manager Leslie, deeply appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
I don't have any other questions.
Do you want me to make a remark or do
you want to anybody else have any questions?
There may be others.
Any questions?
Yes, if I may just add, I do want to just clarify, too,
that, you know, we are signing this contract
and we are continuing to have law enforcement discussions.
We've talked about this.
We are looking at those goals, but we
are continuing with the sheriff's office
and to what Katherine pointed out,
we do need to sign this because we need to continue our law
enforcement.
And as of October First, they continue to be a great partner.
And we will decide ultimately what we end up going with.
But tonight is not that decision for the long term law
enforcement agreement.
So tonight is to keep us going and keep us moving.
And then we do have that termination provision.
Should the council want to make a change that is forthcoming?
And to add to that, lastly, this contra act
is for five years with the possibility of extension
for another five and adding to that date, as you said,
effective October one, 2026, and it does have an exit clause
if you give them a year's notice,
we could move to another law enforcement agency.
And I just from the standpoint of the ad hoc,
I just want to say that, yeah, we reviewed the audit report
as I kind of anticipated what the accounting executive's
response would be.
Yeah, it may be a little different
than other counties do, but there's
nothing in that audit report that
says this is what you're doing, illegal.
This violates government code.
And 51, 350 is the government code that relates to this.
So to me, it makes more sense to move on and make sure
that we're locked in than to try to fight an imaginary fight.
And so that's why I recommend that we bring it forward.
Thank you.
I appreciate your sharing that with us
and for the work you have done on this
on the with the ad hoc committee, I agree with you.
A public safety comes first for all of us here.
And i agree, Leslie, as you said,
we have to move forward with the good, consistent law enforcement
service that we have had for 70 years.
And and I'm ready to make a motion to time to move forward
essentially, and make a motion to approve item number one,
point one 4, which is the Santa Clara County law enforcement
contract to authorize the city manager to execute this five
year agreement with the Santa Clara county
Sheriff's Office as detailed in the staff report.
And I'd like to second.
Thank you.
All in favor any comments?
I'll just have some comments.
Just want to thank staff as well as the county sheriff's
office, the ad hoc committee, our fellow cities.
There's been a ton of work that's
gone into those last few years.
I do think it is the right decision for us to move forward
with this.
I think the other cities are taking it, making a deliberate
choice to try and hold out, to try
and I think solicit some more cost savings
or negotiate for that on top of the fact
we've already gotten an extension
And I just think, we I think the county is operating
with us in good faith here.
I don't think we should take that risk for our residents
to even question whether or not law enforcement will
be available.
And like you said, from the start,
this is not a quality of service issue.
It's a finances issue in this contract gives us
that flexibility.
If we do need to make that decision
to go with with a different partner here.
But I want to say thank you to everyone for the work,
especially to Mayor Page for being on the Ad Hoc committee.
It's been a tremendous amount of additional effort.
Also, there was the question around,
let's say this our report does find something.
The good news is that the state law applies regardless,
because if there ends up being an adjustment,
we will see the benefit of that.
In addition to the other cities.
Thank you.
And so I'll be voting in favor of this.
Okay.
And the other comments and we'll go to the vote.
All those in favor, please say I I any opposed.
Any abstentions.
The motion carries unanimously.
OK.
Item 1.15.
The League of California's cities
Action Alert on Wildfire liability.
I'll keep my remarks very safe.
Very safe.
Safe and contained Sorry, I'm just
trying to read my notes here and trying
to rush in the interest of time.
Do you have a packed agenda tonight?
Essentially I don't have any questions.
What I wanted to share with the residents
was this information came to all elected officials
about a week to ten days ago from the League
of California Cities, which is the league of all
the cities in the state.
And I do recall sharing this with city manager Leslie
And I want to thank Mayor Page for agenda
raising this for tonight.
I tried at the Cities Association of Santa Clara
County, which is all the 15 cities in the county last week,
and the current board president there.
I tried to agendas, but I was unable to do it
because of the timing and the lack of detail information
or the insufficient information at that given point in time
I did highlighted to all the cities.
It is very important for the city of Saratoga
as the residents here will likely understand and agree to.
So this is really me thanking you, Mayor,
to put this on the agenda in even with the information
that we have because we don't want the governor
to be signing these bills and putting
the responsibility on the cities and the residents or impact
by wildfires.
I'm trying not to say anything more to save time, essentially.
Well, I think that we since we brought it up with this action
alert, it really does.
It says that the city opposed Is the governor signing a bill that
essentially would limit an electric utility that
caused the wildfire from being sued
for the did of a maximum amount they could sue for?
This is a two edged sword.
If they get sued.
And they lose the ratepayers pay.
So if it's limited, we pay less.
So it's so you're darned if you do and you're darned if you
don't.
But I think that the bill itself needs to be better thought out,
and that's why we're opposing it.
So any other comments or questions?
OK All in favor.
Please say I, I, we don't have a motion.
Oh, sorry.
Thank you.
It's going to happen right along.
Before Brett caught us.
I would like to.
I'd like to move a stop recommendation.
OK.
Do we have a second?
I'll second.
Thank you again All in favor.
Now, please say I. I opposed.
Any abstentions.
Motion carries unanimously.
We're now done with the consent calendar.
Thank you very much.
All right, next up is public hearing item 2.1.
This is an appeal hearing on a planning commission decision
not to certify the an environmental impact report
and deny applications for design review
and a tentative map for a 25 lot residential subdivision located
on a 72.45 acre parcel on Pearce Road will begin with a report
from staff followed by council questions of staff.
After that, the appellant and their representative
will have a total of ten minutes maximum for opening statements
after opening remarks will proceed to prior to public
comment Members of the public will be
able to comment at that point.
And we'll talk about that later.
So Chris, nice to see you.
And thanks very much Thank you.
Good evening.
Mayor Page, Vice Mayor Wailea, council members
for 72.45 acre of vacant property site
is located on Pearce Road Intersection of Saratoga Heights
Drive and HRA Zoning District.
The average slope of the site is 47%.
The site is bounded to the north by single family homes
to the east by Pearce Road and single family
homes to the south by Highway nine
and to the west by the mountain winery This project was
submitted pursuant to the builders
remaining provision of the housing county Building Act,
or the HRA, a stated purpose of the HRA
is to significantly increase the approval and construction
of new housing for all economic segments of California
communities by meaningfully in effectively limiting
the capability of local governments
to deny we use the density for or rendering feasible
proposed housing development projects.
Those remedy is a provision of a as applicable to qualifying
housing development projects.
When a preliminary application was submitted before Saratoga
adopted a substantial, fully compliant housing element,
the applicant submitted a preliminary application
for housing development on July 20, 2023,
after the State deadline for housing adoption
and before Saratoga adopted a compliant housing element.
Additionally, the project is subject to the City Code.
As I stood at the time of the preliminary application
submittal the HRA Limits Saratoga ability
to deny or conditionally approve a qualifying housing
development.
In addition, the builder's remedy provision of the HRA
prohibits Saratoga from applying subject active standards
to the project or relying on inconsistency
with zoning General plan standards
as a basis for disapproval.
The HRA maintains certain authority
to enforce some objective development standard conditions
and policies by imposing addition of approval,
or if the conditions are based on objective standards.
In effect, at the time, the planning application was filed
and you're not render the project infeasible or require
a reduction of proposed density.
Saratoga does not have authority to impose conditions
based on subjective standards This is the project site plan.
The project will include subdividing the site
to develop 25 single family homes and related improvements,
including new internal streets, landscaping, utilities,
and attention and drainage areas Project development
will be primary, highly concentrated in northern 18.38
acre portion of the site for the southern 54.06 acre portion
is not proposed for development except for the construction
of an emergency access road Lot one through eight
or located near the entrance to the project
and adjacent to Pierce Road.
The dwelling units proposed for East Lot will be two stories
and 2475ft² and floor area dwelling units and lots one, 2,
four and eight will be afforded both units and available
to lower income households.
Dwelling units on March nine, 425 and report two and three
stories and range from 5284 to 7891ft² in size for any 6 or 7
trees proposed for removal.
The site is zoned residential single family
dwellings are permitted use in this zoning district.
The project is not consist with many of the development
standards, including minimum lot size setbacks, allowable flaw
area and maximum building height The 25 single family homes
will be combination both two and three story
structures featuring a contemporary architectural
design.
My presentation will not include details
of all the structures on the site,
but instead will include the elevation of just 3,
2 provide a general idea of your architectural style
of the project.
These are the elevations for the home proposed for lot one.
The homes on lot one through eight,
which are adjacent to Pierce Road,
while the same architectural style we have two stories
and approximately 24ft tall homes and lots one, 2,
four and eight will be affordable to below market rate
households Exterior materials will include four neutral
exterior colors, including off-white and gray color stucco,
gray board and bat siding brown doors and accent, colors,
tan color, the stone veneer and brown asphalt shingle roofing.
These are elevations for lots.
13.
The three stories structure will feature
a contemporary architectural style.
A height of 29ft, ten inches and a floor area of 6396ft².
Exterior materials will include stone veneer
polish siding, cement, plaster and metal trim with elevations.
Provide 20 for the three story building will include a four car
garage a height of 42ft, nine inches and floor area
of 6469ft².
Exterior material will include a stone veneer, stucco,
metal trim.
This is the tallest of 25 homes with the next tallest home
located on about 12, which would be 35ft eight inches This is
the streetscape as viewed from Pierce Road at Intersection,
Emerson State way as illustrated for Homes and lots one through
three, seven and eight will be visible from Pierce Road with
remaining home screen from offsite views by topography
and existing and proposed trees These are the landscape plans
for the project landscaping will include new trees,
including Western redbud and coast live oak trees and drought
tolerant shrubs.
Additional landscaping will also be
located adjacent to all access driveways and interior
roads The perimeters of retention areas
will be landscape with shrubs and ground covers
to soften their appearance.
Each of the homes will be similarly landscaped,
which offer a consistent appearance, which
is complementary to the streetscape of the development
We have this safety in air was prepared for the project.
And here is an information document
that discloses to the public and decision makers
or projects potentially significant
environmental effects.
The air also identifies ways to minimize potential effects,
including identifying a reasonable range of alternatives
that would reduce or avoid them and your can also conclude that
a project would have one or more impacts that cannot be reduced
to below a level of significance EHRs contain information
on a variety of topics, including potential effects
on noise statics, revenue data in plants,
animals habitats such as wetlands fix and residents from
noise, air pollution and wildfire risk that could be
exacerbated by a proposed project year provide information
that conforms decision makers educate the public draft.
The Air was published for a 45 day review on December 29th
of 2025 during the review period,
the city received written comments from public agencies
and members of the public.
The city in the sequence of in prepared written responses
to comments received, which included minor edits
to the draft.
Your response is two comments.
The minor edits to the draft year and mitigation
monitoring and reporting program make up the final year.
The final year was posted online on June 20,
2026 As previously mentioned, Air
is an informational document that discloses for the public
and decision makers.
A project's potential significant environmental
effects in the air also identifies
ways to minimize those potential effects, including identify
within a range of mitigation measures
that would reduce or avoid them.
Air can also conclude that our project would have one or more
impacts that cannot be reduced to below level significance.
These are referred to as significant and unavoidable
impacts Proposed project was determined
to have significant and unavoidable impacts related
to emergency response and evacuate Burden Sea access
Wildlands fires conflict with applicable land use plans
and transportation or vMT so determined
that the adverse environmental effects of the project
be maintained, efficient, and unavoidable following adoption
and implementation and mitigation measures Staff
is recommending the City Council adopt the statement.
I'm overriding consideration regarding
the significant unavoidable impacts
and the anticipated benefits of the project.
The city found that each of these benefits included
in this statement constitute a separate independent ground
for finding that the benefits of the project
outweigh the risk of the potential significant adverse
environmental impacts The benefits of the project that
justify approval are as follows.
The proposed project will provide residential uses
including 20% on site affordable units
on a site that does not currently
contain any housing, which will provide housing and help
to meet the city's Rina obligations Project
Applicant will dedicate a public trail that provides a community
benefit.
The proposed project would provide.
Well designed ownership residential single family
housing as diverse as Saratoga has ownership housing supply
and meet a variety of residents needs
This project is a cohesive development consisting
of high quality contemporary urban design features
that respect and relate as well to its surroundings
and preserves sensitive features of the project site.
The proposed project would preserve
the city's natural beauty and small town residential character
And lastly, forward project will align with the California goals
for housing production The draft air concluded
that the project could result in potentially significant effects
on the environment and that through the implementation
of mitigation measures that were incorporated into the project,
these potential impacts will be reduced to a less
than significant level.
These measures include dust control
during construction protection of certain plants and animals
loss of a Parian compensation, protection
of cultural resources, geotechnical investigation
and paleontological monitoring, greenhouse gas offsets,
noise mitigation, traffic circulation, energy use
and wildlife should be wildfire protection.
This is the list of Project objectives
these objectives include what designed
or residential single family housing adds the city's housing
supply, the addition of housing to help address the city's
green obligations, the extraction of a water design
development.
The sense of the site and surroundings.
Like I said, development of the service,
the city's natural beauty and small town character Chivas.
Streamlined and efficient processing and approval
of the proposed project.
Develop the project in an environmentally sensitive manner
and to create a fire safe community on July 13,
the applicant submitted an appeal to the City Council
of the Planning Commission decision July 8th decision
to deny the project the appeal included a letter from
the applicants attorney, which included just applications
of why the Planning Commission erred in their decision.
The applicant stated basis for the appeal
that the projects are protected by the housing Accountability
Act and the builders.
Many provisions of the HOA.
It cannot be lawfully disapproved are also mentions
the potential legal remedies available to the applicant
and the city does not approve the project.
These are some of your findings.
The Council is to make to approve the project.
These findings serve as the basis for the Council decision.
The Council is determined that the project
meets these findings.
Details not related to these findings
or effectively beyond the scope of the Council's review,
where there would be an issue with making a particular finding
without altering the design element of the project
to meet this finding which could have resulted affecting
the project's feasibility VHA limits the city from using such
a finding to deny the project or impact conditions The project
is not consistent with findings.
One, 4, 6 and 7.
However, and the builders remedy provisions of the Housing
Accountability Act.
Such inconsistencies may not be the basis for denying
design review for the project.
Therefore, the proposed resolution recommends approval.
More details on each of the findings
included in the staff report.
The city Code provides that any tentative map should not
be approved unless these nine tentative map
findings can be made.
The project is not consistent with findings one, two and 4.
However, under the DOJ Remedy provision of the HRA,
such inconsistency may not be the basis
for disapproval in the tentative map proposed resolution.
Therefore, does not make this negative.
Finding The staff report includes evidence concerning
each of these findings, and that evidence
supports approval of the map traffic
commends the City Council uphold the repeal, thereby approving
the project and take the following actions.
Adopt the attached resolution making the appropriate
seek of findings.
Adopting the statement of overriding considerations
certifying the final Environmental Impact Report
and adopting a mitigation monitoring
and reporting program for the project
and adopt the attached resolution
and traditionally approve an application for design, review
and tentative map.
Subdivide a 72.45 acre parcel into 25 lots
and construct 25 single family dwellings
for the proposed assign estates development.
Besides city staff, the following personnel
are available this evening to address any questions city
Council might have regarding the project.
This could Church from Fear and Pierce Fear and fears.
The city's traffic consultant, Matt mcKenna
and Brad Fox from County Fire.
Jason Brandman and Jana for the Debogorski and First Carbon
Solutions.
They both work with city staff and prep
the R and Trish to learn from ex-con consultants and Grace
Caskey from Kerrison associates.
These are the traffic assortments
that provided information to first Carbon Solutions
for the year.
There are both attending the meeting remotely.
This concludes my report.
Thank you.
You.
Thank you, Chris.
Questions of staff.
Tina.
Chris thank you so much for your report.
And I have I'm going to keep my questions contained here.
I'm to make come back with more in the interest of time,
I'm sure.
Keep in contact.
Thank you.
So, Chris, my first question is for this project site According
to the general plan, how many units would be allowed
or what's the density allowed per our general plan for this
whole project ?
Four acres.
I don't have a number off my head.
I don't know.
I think this.
I think staff Nine I want to say they're confident.
We believe it's nine.
Okay.
Could someone meanwhile check?
That'd be great.
And if we just name or double check.
OK, so let's say general plan allows
nine units and the proposal is 25.
Okay.
And this project application has been approved or gone
through County Fire Review.
Can you help us a little bit more about that?
And if you need, just ask the County Fire folks to be here.
It has received fire department clearance to proceed.
So we have Fire Council fire approval.
Yes, we have County Fire approval.
Yes.
OK.
Did they put any conditions of approval
or did they just review it?
They have they have some conditions, maybe best,
the ones to address the question on fire OK.
That will be great.
If they could help us.
Thanks, Chris for the.
Good evening.
Mayor.
Vice Mayor council Brad Fox, acting fire marshal
for County Fire.
We did review the project for compliance with the California
fire Code and the minimums State minimum fire safe regulations.
And to be clear, our scope of review
for the project at this point is the acts
as to the project and the water supply.
So that's our scope of the review
The project did meet all of the requirements,
but I want to be transparent that in meeting
those requirements they needed to get a exception
request to the state minimum fire safe regs
because they were not able to meet
some of the prescriptive requirements.
That exception request is part of the process of the state
minimum fire safe regs.
So it is included in the process.
But that's where our conditions come in.
So it's similar to maybe you're familiar with an alternate means
or methods that we typically see in the building department.
So the project has offered mitigation for the areas
where they are not meeting that prescriptive code
in that exception request that provides same practical effect.
I can go into more detail on that if you'd like,
or I can pause a little bit more at a higher level.
At a conceptual level, would be very helpful, but not so detail
in the interest of time.
Sure.
Understood.
So that to the areas that were deficient are there.
There's a section of Toll Gate Road
which is used as the access.
That's the primary access for the fire department
that exceeds 15%.
That is the requirement that's set by the state.
However, the requirement allows them
to go up to 20% with mitigate.
And so, I believe there's a 300 or less foot section that
has a slope of 16 to 18%.
So it's a it's a little over the 15%.
So that was one factor.
The other factor is that the state minimum fire safety
regs also require a 30 foot setback for from property lines
or roads for parcels that are located in the very high fire
hazard severity zone.
This project, some of the parcels
are located in that very high fire hazard severity zone
and are subject to that requirement
And some of the parcels are not there and a high fire hazard
severity zone, they are not subject to it.
So some of the parcels do not have the 30 foot
setback to the property line.
However, they all have the parcels have 30ft between
structure layers and really, that is the intent of that code
because we're trying to prevent structure destruction
or ignition and thereby normally when you're thinking of a single
lot development, you can't control what's on the other side
of the property line.
Hence 30ft to the property line and this development there
develop in a larger multi lot development.
So they can control the distance from structure to structure,
which is maintaining that 30ft.
Additionally, the project is putting in no
build easements for those spaces between the structures
that are deficient to make sure that in the future.
There's not additions or any use put there that
would decrease the distance.
There's other mitigating features
that they're offering as well, but that
would be diving into the weeds, which i won't do at this time.
Thank you.
We'll keep the weeds out.
Better for fire prevention.
So let me get this straight.
The 30 foot requirement of the setback is for very high fire
hazard severity zones and some of those parcels that are
in those zones meet the 30ft because I heard some parcels
meet the 30, some don't.
But I also heard some parcels are in very high fire hazard
severity zones and some are in high fire hazard severity zones.
So maybe somebody can check this I
would like to know this sometime in the course of this evening.
If you don't have the answer right now.
Sure, I'm sure the project can specify which lots meet it
and which don't.
But to be clear, if a parcel is only in the high, not
the very high, they don't have to meet the 30 foot setback
requirement and that's my question there.
The requirement is 30ft, which is very high fire hazard
severity zones.
Does it meet in all those parcels?
And if it is high, the requirement is not 30.
So then it is not that technicalities deficient.
I hear you that the structures all three feet.
So from a safety perspective, it seems okay,
but the requirement perspective very high.
Do all the very high ones have the 30ft setback as required not
to the property line?
And that's why I bring them up as something
that they had to mitigate through the exception request.
OK.
That's that sort of.
So they have 30ft structure to structure,
but not to the property line in some cases for some
of the parcels even we are required.
Correct.
Thank you.
That is very helpful.
And the other part, the very high level
question, I just want to be clear.
I heard from you that the scope of review
was limited to access to the project and the water supply.
So if the project were to be approved then
it goes back to County Fire at some stage for building.
And yeah, during building permitting,
we will also review the project building department has
the primary responsibility for reviewing
the specific structures of the building code
will review additional things like sprinkler
systems or e-waste systems.
And we also look to make sure that the project is complied
with all of the mitigate rating features
that they are putting into the project.
Now at this time, for the tentative map.
Okay.
So that is a really related to the structures themselves,
correct?
At that stage?
OK.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mayor.
I have One question for your parent peers.
Actually, maybe two.
I just want to understand, there's
been a lot of communication from residents about the evacuation
times and the reports.
So I have a couple of questions.
I would like to address the question about the general plan
before we move forward to be nine units for the general plan
designation.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thanks.
Good evening, Mayor Vice Mayor Francisco Church
with Faron Pierce.
Good to see everybody.
Thank you.
And thank you for your work on this.
Francisco So I'm trying to understand,
we have gone through the report as the overall for the city,
the Fair Peers Evaluation study that came to us, I think,
a couple of months ago.
And from my level of understanding,
it talks of the existing conditions in the city
the development with the Builders Remedy Project.
And then Third is development with as remedy
in all other future possible development as in the planning.
I'm just putting paraphrasing very roughly.
So what the key question for me is those numbers are huge.
Molotov for development.
How can we separate out the impact fact
of this project on evacuation from Pierce Road,
I saw something in the staff report,
which talks of smaller numbers.
Can you help us understand that?
And then I will ask you one more question.
Yeah happy to try to decipher the different parts.
So the report that you're referring
to that we presented, I believe, and June
or July of this year as the evacuation time assessment
That does to your point, look cumulatively at the entire city
at what it would take to evacuate residents
and employees within the evacuee shouldn't
like the high fire zones and what
it would take to evacuate them.
We looked at that cumulatively because it
looks at the total development, as you mentioned,
under various scenarios.
And so that analysis study would not be able to discern,
especially visually what this project's contribution would
be to that study, because there's
a cumulative number, the applicant and air itself
has prepared evacuation analysis that looks specifically just
at the site itself.
I will just note that the methodology and the methodology
for the to evacuate in time analysis
are a little bit different.
So they're not apples to apples comparisons.
Would you be comfortable to answer more or you would rather
leave it for either staff or for the applicant
to talk about that?
I can try to answer as much as I can here.
I'm happy to.
Sure So what numbers are we talking
in terms of the impact of that specific
of this specific project?
So maybe then I'll have some I don't
know all the specific numbers I think
we have somebody here can speak to the specific numbers
from that study.
Okay.
Maybe the applicant can respond to that.
I have a different question for your report.
What it your methodology for the evacuation times for the city,
as you said, various developmental scenarios
there were various assumptions made
as for any study at a high level, what kind of assumptions
were factored into failures on a Pierce Road?
General in the hillsides or specifically
for Pierce Road around this project site
there, we understand in the geologic conditions,
the landslide conditions.
And so on and so forth was some kind
of a failure included in your methods ology?
Well, yeah, the short answer is the evacuation time analysis
does not include any roadway failures or closures.
And the analysis, the previous analysis
that we did in 2025, which was more of a planning level
assessment that looked at capacity
ratios of the volume of the evacuation vehicle volume
versus the capacity of the roadway
did qualitatively you talk about the closure of some roadways,
particularly on Pierce Road and how that
would affect the evacuation.
But it was a qualitative assessment.
But the most recent evacuation time did not.
How could we factor or I'm hearing two things from you.
Very helpful.
Thank you.
And I'm struggling to ask you the question, how do we
factor that into assessing the situation that this project is
or the impact this project is going to have?
If you're looking for specifically
if what the impact of this project
that I'll defer to the applicant and their travel time analysis.
But I think the way to maybe think about the city study,
it really does helps to understand
cumulative tively over time.
If these developments are all approved and once they're today,
what would that mean to the city?
Where are the constraints operationally
that the city should consider and that then helps the city,
then think about what are the possible solutions
to help might to help improve evacuation
times throughout the city.
OK.
I will stop asking that specific question for now Last question,
Mary, if I may.
OK.
This is a question for Richard and his team.
So Richard, I heard Chris refer multiple times, even
in his presentation today, in addition to the staff
report that we have, the whole agenda packet
talks multiple times of refers to the housing accountability
Act and that builder's remedy is a provision of the HRA and HRA
limits.
The housing Accountability Act limits the city's ability
to deny or conditionally approve a qualifying housing development
project.
And objectives standards in place at the time,
the preliminary application was received by the city,
which I know you saw Chris, give a date of June 20th, 2023.
So can you help us understand what
would be the possible not the objective standards,
but what are the things we need to what would give the Council
authority?
What criteria do we needed to meet
to be able to say if the council were to field
this doesn't meet standards.
These are the impacts.
What would give?
What all do we need to satisfy the criteria to be able to deny
abilities from any project?
I'm going to introduce my colleague, Gabe Ross who
is our officers expert on this project
and has been working with staff.
And I'll have him give a short answer to that question.
And you can see if you have followed.
Thank you, Richard.
So under the builder's remedy provisions of the Housing
Accountability Act, as you said, Vice mayor,
we have very narrow reasons why we, the city council,
could deny a project.
And I think the one that you're asking about
is if the project is inconsistent
with a specific objective written health and safety
standard that was in place at the time
of the preliminary application.
If if the project were inconsistent with such
a standard, that could be a reason for the City Council
to deny the project consistent with the Housing Accountability
Act and the builders remedy Do we have any?
And so that date would be at the time,
would that be the date that chris mentioned,
June of 2023, Correct.
What standards.
If any, did we have at that time ?
We did not have at that time, any standard that
meets the qualifications that I just
stated that relates to evacuation time
or to the wildfire question that that you've been discussing.
Okay.
Okay Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'll hold the rest of my questions to later.
Thank you.
OK Who else got questions?
I know Tina asked them all.
Go ahead.
Yes.
Just a few quick questions and the first one, the year.
I didn't find the projects, VMT is approximately 25 and compared
with the county wide, a threshold of 11 kind of staff
or maybe Franciscan.
Explain to us what is the value data for existing residence
is in the same hillside area.
And what does.
I mean?
The 25 represents to, you know, a practical term?
Yeah, happy to answer that question.
So when we're looking at VMT or vehicle Miles traveled
for residential development, we're
looking at all the travel that occurs from the home.
So that's going to work, going shopping, doing other errands
throughout the day.
And there's models that kind of try
to emulate and calculate that number.
And so the 25 miles means that on average,
the person living off the project
will travel around 25 miles per day.
So that includes going to work, etc., etc..
I for existing conditions, even without the project,
the number is about the same because if you think about it,
it's really like how far you have to travel.
So if you're up in Saratoga on Peirce road,
whether you live on, you know, depending
on where you live a little bit.
But the distance overall is not going
to be that substantially different because you have
to travel down past, get onto one of the main arterial
Saratoga, Sunnyvale or Saratoga, and then you spread out kind of
into the other areas.
Normally two for jobs is like the biggest contributor
to your length of trips The county average,
the threshold is 11 miles, but the actual average itself
because is around 13 for the county saratoga.
This has a much higher VMT number
because there's more residents, not a lot of jobs.
So a lot of trips up to go out external to the city
to travel Thank you.
So if I'm hearing that right, basically, you're
saying this project doesn't increase the VMD number service
population.
OK.
All right.
Thank you.
And I have another quick, quick question.
This is either staff or a city attorney to help us answer this.
So Chris mentioned that of the seven design review findings,
staff indicates that Four of them
could be could not be made on the merits.
And my question is are the city's and normal design review
findings applicable to Builders Remedies Project at all ?
It's a good question the way we look at it
is that the city's code requires the design review findings
to approve the project.
And so they remain applicable.
But the builder's remedy.
And Housing Accountability Act limits, as we've said,
limits the reasons that we could have to say no.
So in this case, it sort of limits
the the use or what we can say through the design review
findings.
But we still need to make them so I
guess I'm a little confused.
So.
So even when we cannot the four of them cannot be made
on the merits.
That is not a reason under the Housing Accountability Act
to deny the project.
So basically it's a limit on our rights
to deny the project based on the design findings.
Correct?
Okay.
I guess I assume that goes to the same thing
for the tentative Map findings.
Correct?
Got it.
OK.
All right.
I'll stop for now.
Thank you both I have a couple good questions as well.
Probably for staff or maybe for Gabe.
There was a mention of other existing
zoning implying non units when it comes to Builders remedy.
If that's sort of like, you know,
let's say nine units is maybe the low end,
right for what it zoned for when it comes to Builders Remedy
Project, is there a upper limit in terms
of what can be built there?
I'm not sure if there's an upper limit
but I think we can say that this project is not
at any limit that might exist.
OK.
Yeah.
This project's in consisting city with the zoning
is not one of the reasons that we have to deny the project.
Okay.
Thank you.
And the other question is probably
more for staff preferred peers.
Could you give us a sense of when
it comes there's some mitigation measures around Pierce Road.
Can you give us some context for the current condition
of First Road in that area, specifically
the current condition?
Pierce Road in that area is two lane in each direction.
The hillside road generally has narrow shoulders
and is also relatively narrow.
So I think it's around 2020, 22 to 24ft,
depending on where you are There's been mention
of landslides or moving soil around there.
Can you give some context for that as well?
I am not the best person to answer that question.
So might defer to staff on that.
All right I think the applicant may know something
about the land size.
If we're waiting for that.
All right.
Yeah, maybe we can wait till the right.
That's the last question.
And this is more for staff is when
we take a look at our arena numbers,
how many units would this contribute to.
And what categories?
So the project is 25 units, 20 of those are market rate units
and five are affordable.
OK.
And what areas of affordable because there's
sort of below market there.
There are multiple categories, low income, low income,
very, very low income.
Okay Yeah.
Thank you.
Sure.
I'm just for the audience, You might
find it interesting to hear what low income and very low income
is in Santa Clara County.
So every year, the state and the federal government
put out the area median income for each county.
So for 2026, the area, median income for a four person
household is $205,500.
So a four person household that makes,
um $112,750 qualifies as very low income In Santa Clara County
A lot of my questions have been asked, so.
Okay, thanks.
And the other questions Okay.
I see that it's 9:00, so this is about two hours in.
We're about to do public comment.
Actually, we're about to do the Yeah,
the appellant Would you all like to take a break now
or do break now before we start with the Appellant Okay.
So we're going to take a five minutes, Okay.
Or do you want five minutes?
OK.
We'll be back at 9:05.
Thank you For That All All right,
ladies and gentlemen, if we can please get started again,
you need to Ladies and gentlemen,
if we could please take our seats I know you All right?
I'm going to call this meeting back to order.
I. And now.
And now.
We'll have ten minutes from the appellant.
Thank you and your team.
Good evening, Mayor Page.
Councilman.
Thank you for inviting us to be here tonight.
Um, I'm Bill Hershman.
I'm the managing partner.
Thomas.
I'm the owner of the property and a lot of the comments
and questions, as you've already asked,
who are part of my presentation?
So you've taken a little bit air out of my present ation,
but we're going to run through it very quickly.
And I'm going to go quickly because I
want to leave some time at the end,
if we have to address a couple of the questions that came up.
And we do have answers to a couple
that we're almost answered, shall I say.
And so we can respond to that, I'd
like to thank the city staff.
They did a very good job of explaining our project to you.
I don't think I could have done it much better.
We're going to put some pictures up and go through and out
a few other comments.
But they've done a very good job to take care of that
or to present it to you and give you a pretty good description
of what's going on.
Um Lexar company is my development company
has been building in Saratoga and surrounding communities
for 40 years.
We're, we're well versed in this kind of home building.
And we've owned the property since 1999.
So the property has been in our ownership for a very long time.
As you know, we are also the owners of the Mountain Winery.
And so we have a very vested interest
in having this project be developed
appropriately Second slide, Domenic, you got it.
OK.
Thank you.
Thank.
She didn't want to leave that up to me.
They don't trust me as has been indicated, 25 homes, 20 market
rate units in important, I think,
to point out these are affordable.
The affordable are for sale units
sometimes not the same thing in other parts of the county that
are rental units.
These are these are proposed to be for sale units.
There are 5, 4 of those units.
There are three units.
I apologize.
Their homes.
People don't live in units.
They live in homes.
They're five homes, three of which
will also be market rate units and Cindy pointed out to you
kind of where one person qualify for that.
But that's a whole calculation that this
is the city of the county makes at the time of sale.
The project is designed as you can see,
to be a firewise community and also fortified
gold home community.
I should step back this evening.
I have with us Amanda from Hanover Brunetti.
I have Carol Rice, who did our fire of fire safe plan.
And she can speak much better than I can to what all
that that thing means.
And I'm going to call her up later
to answer some of your questions as it relates
to when we get into fire spread and some of the things
that are part of this, this project.
As you can see from the from the drawing it's a 75 acre parcel.
The aerial.
So 75 acre parcel.
And you can see that we're developing about 18 acres.
And that also includes the emergency road,
which you can kind of see off to the side.
And some of you have been on the site.
We refer to this a quarry road, that little loop road.
And the emergency road is a connection
from the back cul de sac to that which will then ultimately
come out to Pierce Road.
Critical improvements There were some questions that
came up relative to Pierce Road, Pierce Road is a is a and a fair
and Pierce pointed to this as well That's a major improvement.
Pierce Rosen in a section which we'll get to on another slide
to show you where that might be is a road
that's slipping right now.
And part of our conditions of approval
and our agreement with the city is
that we will participate in repairing that problem we're
going to construct a mile of trail along Pierce Road
to make a connection from Saratoga Heights
to somewhere in or about Highway nine,
depending on where the city tells us we make the connection.
OK.
Emergency access.
We talked about fire suppression, infrastructure.
We're putting in seven hydrants, a whole fire
system within the road system.
Okay.
Significant fire modifications.
This is an aerial of the the property.
And you can see that we're very consistent in our homes are very
consistent with the size and location lot
sizes of the surrounding community We purposely did that.
It wasn't by chance.
That's how we design this project.
It was a question about how many units could we have,
homes could we have put on this site
I think you know the answer.
We could have put a lot more homes on this side
or proposed a lot more homes on this site.
We chose to do what we did These are the Affordable picture,
The affordable houses for sale or for bedroom,
two and a half bath.
They're designed for families, and they help make those.
We have built this product in the past
and it was a very, very marketable product.
It's a very, very nice home floor plan of the,
you can see every floor plan of the homes, pictures.
Chris had already put up some pictures
of some of the other houses.
This is a rendering of one, just to give you
a general idea of what we have in mind, Fire resistant design
materials and landscaping And it will be have a fireplace
certificate requirement.
We'll talk about that a little bit.
Again, what that means for the trail
If you can see in yellow, if you look along,
Pierce Road right there, you can see
like a little yellow section.
That's the Pierce General location
of where the Pierce road is.
Having the issues with the slide right now.
And that will be a portion of what we're going to repair.
Blue dotted line is the trail.
We're proposing.
And then it's hard to see.
But the green area to the left of the Pierce Road
is the emergency access road which will
be for emergency purposes only.
But as you can see, it's also designed to not only provide
emergency access from the subdivision,
but also from a secondary access around Pierce
Road in the event of some kind of failure on Pierce Road
can be used for fire equipment or fire
or just turns emergency access road.
I just talked about got a little bit ahead of myself.
This is a design for the infrastructure.
You can see the fire hydrants located in red.
Currently.
There's nothing as you well know.
And these not only benefit our community,
but you can see their location relative to the rest
of the community.
Some of these hydrants are is are less than 100ft away from
some of that existing community as a significant amount of fire
protection.
And in the general community and to the wildlife area
that will be undeveloped fire mitigation.
I'm going to go very quickly here because I'm
going to ask to allow is if you'll let us to talk about this
a little bit with somebody, Carol Rice, who's
much more qualified than I to discuss
the mitigations that we're proposing.
They are significant.
Some of the findings that you're being
asked to make address what's taking place from a community
benefit.
The mitigation measures that we're
proposing that address some of the issues that concerns
relative to how do you how do you offset some
of the and some of the impacts that the project could
have on the evacuee?
This is one of them.
The fire new fuel modify station.
Again, Carol can speak to this but doing
what we're doing this was all generated
through a type of modeling.
And again, I'll let her speak to it more.
But the fire modifications can reduce the rate of spread
meaning how quickly to 93% based on our mitigation.
This is a very important picture.
This is a before and after.
You can see the side is what what the colors mean.
But if I tell you red is bad and blues good,
that's what the charts will say.
This is the difference between the intensity of the fire.
Again Carol can speak to this.
But it's this is all addresses.
What do we do to slow the impact of a wildfire
and help prevent an increased amount of damage as a result?
So it comes through fuel management tree trimming, things
that you can do You speak to it in the Mary.
You had a fire preparedness meeting.
And I will just refresh everybody's memory.
The whole conversation was around hardening communities.
And what do you do to better prepare for that event?
That's what we're talking about here.
That's exactly what we're proposing Benefits
of the mitigation on the left hand side or the existing
conditions.
I'm going quickly.
I'm running out of time.
Right hand side is the benefits that we can see 48 to 70%
reduction in in the fire rival so quickly,
the fire gets to you.
OK.
Why is that important?
Well, if we can reduce how quickly the fire gets you,
that obviously gives you much more time to evacuate.
Um, 76 to 99 minutes delay in the fire growth
How quickly does the fire expand as we go?
94% reduction in the flame.
All of this has to do with the mitigation and the fuel
management that we're talking about.
Okay?
And these are model numbers.
Boy, I mean, that's our that's our that's our presentation.
I went very quickly.
I do have a couple of answers to a couple of the questions that
were asked.
I'd be happy to respond to that.
But I know that my time is limited here.
Yes, Tina, I think we should let him
answer a couple of the questions that we
asked before because we did direct
that they were the answer.
So yeah, Thank you.
I took the best notes.
I could, but there was a couple I'll start with in the order
that you kind of asked the questions,
you were asking some questions about the fire department
in our meeting, their requirements and i
confirmed with Brad Fox.
Yes.
I didn't want to say something inappropriate here,
but we have met all the requirements of the fire
department.
And what Brad was referring to are some of the things
we needed to do relative to the location of some of the houses
and hardening the houses that were fall into the, um,
thank you.
We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
lots that fall into the high fire area three of which
are the of the units closest to Pierce Road.
There are very high, the very high I'm sorry if I said high.
Very high.
I'm sorry.
And what, what it really is, is Brad was explaining.
It's.
It's is a requirement.
So that to try to stop fire from going from house to house.
And so there's a requirement of 30ft and we meet that
requirement where it was a little bit tight.
We added some additional things.
Brad referred to limiting prohibiting the building closer
to in the setback lines hardening the surfaces on some
of the walls of additional fire protection
that the question was asked will come in under the building
permit Okay, but these are required
things that are have been put into place on this application.
So they were required to do that when we get to the building.
OK There was a question.
Thank you.
Uh, excuse me I know that First carbon is here,
and the consultant who prepared the fair, the report specific
to our project, the Kittleson and Associates, is on zoom.
So they can answer this question better than I.
But I am prepared to let you know that there
are there were three reports done to by fair
and pierce the ones that the presented to you already.
And one done through the air process, through first carbon,
through the direction of the city by Kittleson associates
which dealt directly the impacts of our project Mason
Estates and that's the report that I think you were asking,
what are the results of their report?
They were the 24 to 54 seconds that you've heard kicked around.
That is the result of what our impact, what they determined
was our impact, our impact business rates impact.
Again, I would prefer to have you direct that to them.
But that is the basis.
There were different reports.
OK.
One study, our project, the other
started to study the cities OK.
The VMT was addressed.
Conditions on Peirce Road.
I think we addressed and those were my only notes
and the questions, unless I missed
something, Any questions Tina?
Thank you.
So a little more detail and I'll just
add the questions right now.
So you can address some or if the mayor permits.
Kittleson can respond to that So I
do want to understand from them about the 24 seconds and the 54
seconds.
I want to know what is the impact of this project in terms
of evac location, time, addition for from this project
and based on the study.
So I heard you say that they can respond That's one question.
The second question I have is you responded earlier
and you showed in your slide the condition of Pearce Road,
the land is slipping.
There's a landslide there.
The improvement can use specifically call out
the improvement that you are proposing
and you talked about the what what was the word you used?
The the evacuation route or the second reaccess access road
Emergency Access road.
Thank you.
How does that play into that?
How does that support that?
And I saw some there You were calling out the annual Firewise
certificate.
Yes.
So once if the project were to be approved
and once construction happens, you
are going to sell all the 25 homes,
is the assumption I would make.
And at that point, who's responsible for making sure
that the fire by certification happens in every year as well
as I know somebody was going to ask the next question.
So I will as well.
In terms of the mitigation, the management
of the fuel modification and keeping that contained.
Okay.
How do you see that?
Okay.
And is it.
And I'll add to that is that all included
in the conditions of approval as presented in the staff back?
Let me go backwards because this is you
remember it in the reverse order to answer your question,
was it all included in the.
Yes, There's specific conditions of approval.
And I can give you the exact conditions.
There's only three that require the ongoing, if you will,
maintenance and certification as we
go specifically condition P dash two condition engineering,
ESG dash.
I'm holding my glasses 16 and P W dash 13.
These are the requirements that, if you will give teeth
to two to the first one is, is it requires
an HOA to be in covenants and restrictions
to be put in place to a through an HOA homeowners association
that within that which the city will review,
those have to really be reviewed by the city
and comment before we record the map.
The subdivision map.
And within that it's already the conditions
of approval or in the conditions of approval
that we will provide for exactly what you're saying.
There will be a third party monitoring
of that on an annual basis.
So who will be held responsible?
The HOA will be held responsible.
How does that get enforced?
There's a requirement that we self
monitor through a third party.
The HOA selves monitors through a third party.
So there's some teeth to that.
The engine and dash 16 is kind of a says that again
in a different manner.
But it's the kind of the same condition
and the public works condition number 13,
it says owner applicant shall implement a fuel reduction
program for fire mitigation covering those parcels prior
to certification of occupant C So
so it's a require permit that's ongoing is my point.
OK.
Now you're going to make me remember going backwards here.
Yeah.
And you're going to make me remember.
What was my other question?
The other question was the emergency access road.
How does that play into the or how
does that relate to the improvement
that you're saying you would work with the city?
From what I recall to different things.
Okay.
Two different things.
The first one is this the improvement on Peirce Road very
early in our design, when we met with public
was very, very early in the project.
The topic came up about the failures on Peirce Road,
and so there was a discussion with Public Works that would we,
as developers be willing to cooperate,
participate in the improvements?
And it was agreed and it's a condition of approval
within our application.
You're finding and the conditions
that we all participate with the city on a 5050 basis
to make those improvements.
So your second part of that question was,
what are those improvements yet to be determined?
The studies are just now taking place.
There's going to need to be a design, which
the preliminary design have already been done.
The two to.
It's going to be a part of grading.
There's going to be some need to be some excavation,
some walls built. Okay.
To reinforce that area of Peirce Road
And we have agreed to participate that participate
with the city more than likely we will be doing
the construct in the city will be participate in with dollars
at the end of the day honest answer
it'll be cheaper for us to do it than probably the city to do it.
So it's a better way for us to handle it.
And so as part of that would be that condition,
the estimates is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.5 million
at this point.
But you also said to be determined.
Absolutely.
Is the final design is not complete, but it would include,
for example, qualitatively in a few words,
how would you describe the possible scope of work?
There'll be an excavation.
It's a slide.
So normally what happens on a slide
is depending on how deep it is, you're
going to ask me an engineering question.
Be careful, I'll bore you on a slide.
Depending on how deep the slide is,
we're either going to bore through it.
OK and see how deep Piers would have
to go to support to get to solid earth or if it's shallower,
we could excavate and re compact.
You can use shot create walls more than likely,
these would be drilled piers with some kind of wall.
And that would be the extent of the improvements.
OK.
Thank you.
And the emergency access road.
We're just the access is kind of it is separate from that bridge.
You see access that goes from the cul de sac.
As you can see on the upper left of the picture
comes down and goes to for sake of argument.
It would come out somewhere in the area
where our front gate is.
If you know where that is.
On Peirce Road, it would be somewhere in that general areas
where it would come through Okay.
It would be used for emergency purposes.
And however, it's emergency purposes for anybody
in the event of an emergency, for example
if Pierce Road for some reason would
be blocked one lane or the other,
the fire department could use that access to, you know,
go around Pierce Road.
It could be used as a secondary let fire
equipment come that way.
That other people go use Pierce Road could
be used for really whatever reason,
it would need to be used for maintain built and maintained
by the development and maintained
by the associate nation.
So it's a private road.
All the roads are private.
Just want to make sure.
Yes.
So it's going to be a private road and only for an emergency.
It would be open to the public as well as the fire.
Correct Typically, the fire department
will require us to change it, put
a knock off lock that they have access to
or something like that.
So it's not used on a regular basis.
That's typically what happens with an emergency
road like that.
They have access, they.
OK, thanks.
Back to my first question.
Yes the traffic.
OK.
Well, you're the evacuation.
You're correct.
Yeah, that was I think you said the I'm going to defer to them.
But I will answer your question.
That that the report that was under sequel
were required to address that the
impacts that our project would have on the community.
Okay that's what the report that that was prepared
for the air and that was the purpose of that to conclude
and it was it was different.
As Ferrum Pierce pointed out.
It was different than their report or their report
involved the city report involved
or that report involved our project.
And the conclusion and it had a little different criteria.
A Fair Empiricist report talks about evacuation and correct.
You can ask them, but I'm fairly certain i'm correct.
The evacuation safe point was Highway 85
from the city to Highway 85, when the report
was done for our project, there were several different locations
picked as basically safe havens, one
of them being West Valley College, another one being there
were several And there in the report that's part,
by the way, that's part of the fire prevention plan
where file wildfire protection plan and I know this by heart,
it's in the appendix to the air appendix J,
as in Jaguar And that's made part of our report
is part of that fire prevention book.
The conclusion lines of that report are in that.
And so when we refer to this in terms of fractions of a minute,
that were those were the conclusions
of the impact of our project on that evacuation
to those locations.
As we've had conversations with Ferrum Pierce,
this is not an exact science by any means Somebody
be off by tens.
You bet they could be.
Can it be a few minutes?
Could it be less than that?
Could there be no impact?
It's not that an inexact science,
but it gives you an idea of the magnitude.
And so to compare the two reports, which
they are quite different, but the in the fair in Pierce
report.
There were three sections A, B and C,
The original one was the existing condition.
B was it was is.
He added units within the city that was consist of
and don't quote me, but I think was 700
and I have it here 725 additional units there was there
was included in that report.
And the final one, which was C included in another addition,
all 4498 units.
OK.
Bring in a total for the entire city, every square inch of land
you could ever develop.
Basically 2 2 200, 220, 223 additional units.
That's what was prepared in the fair in Pierce Report
Hours Project was included in Section B, which
were 25 units out of 725.
So you can do the math yourself.
We don't have that significant of an impact given 725 units.
So it makes logical sense again.
But to tie it down to two minutes and seconds,
I think you got to look at the magnitude of our impact Now.
Okay.
Those are my statements.
You should probably ask Kittleson the same questions.
I do see the Great Gutter Henry, and she's probably
going to say I said something wrong, so I'll
be playing to the interest of everybody's time.
I'm good with this now, but if it's
going to save us public comment time, I'm okay.
Only because I just like to ask is
anybody else would like to ask a question before we go.
I just like to ask one question about the hardening
of the homes.
It I was wondering if you could describe some of the things
that you're doing to harden homes.
Can I have can I have Carol address this?
Because it comes into the whole department under the can I can
I have her address that?
Thank you Thank you.
Thank you for having me up here and describe
to be able to describe this to you.
I'm Carole Rice with Wyland Resource Management, who wrote
the wildfire protection plan.
Just as a note, I've been doing this for about 40 years.
And working in the wildland urban interface, worked
on community wildfire protection plans
for 4, 4, 3 counties, two cities and most did most of the work
for the big landowners in the Bay Area.
I did help start the International Association
of Wildland Fire and started up the wild Land Fire
section for that National Fire Protection Association.
Who certifies these firewise communities?
So I have a deep involvement of urban interface
and that so to your point about the hardening of the homes,
the buildings are going to be made out
of noncombustible exteriors and that
includes not only the surface of it,
but also they require that there is an additional tempered glass
in it.
So that because oftentimes windows are a weak link.
So they added additional levels of protection
for the windows They also require
that the do this alternative means of Compliance
was also additional non combustible
zones adjacent to the homes.
So we were the current it's not even code yet.
But there is going to be a called
a zone zero and noncombustible zone for the first five feet.
And in this case, it's going to be ten feet.
And so that makes it gives it an additional level of safety.
And then, as as Brad had mentioned,
we are going to have a non buildable easement
and that's important because we want to have at least 30ft
separation from house to house.
One of the things that we're understanding
is that homes will burn up each other if they
are too close to each other.
And this assures that that will.
That's separation will be sufficient.
So those are some of the ways that we can make sure
that those homes are fire safe to the point where
on this one of the slides, it shows that each of these homes
can be a gold level of of wildfire prepared home
as certified by the Institute for Building and Home Safety.
So it's a it's a really big coup.
Very few homes are available are are to that standard.
And so these will be.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
If at the end will no.
Okay.
So since Grace is still got her hand raised, I'm going to ask,
is a woman right ?
Well, I'd like to see if can you let Grace talk?
There's I am promoting her to panelists right now.
OK.
Thanks.
So she'll be joining right now.
Here she comes And you all hear me?
Sure can.
Yep.
Perfect.
I will start by saying that I still, I
think, got to the same answer I was going to give but I'm
happy to just answer any follow up questions,
if there are any of.
I'm good.
Thanks, Chris I think we're okay.
Grace Thank you.
OK.
We may have more later, though.
I think you're in.
OK So with that, I would like to open the public comment period.
I How many speaker slips do we have?
I have 19 right now.
And I know there's at least, gosh,
I see 51 attendees remotely, a number
of whom will speak council.
I was thinking maybe we limit that
to two minutes per speakers.
That sound okay.
OK with it So we're that is that okay?
Council So we're going to limit our time of public speaking
to two minutes and left elbow over and we prepare.
So we have a policy in our meetings
that when we have a more than a certain number of speakers
and typically it's 20 that we limit the time
we do that all the time.
And we have two people on line.
So we have at least two people on line.
And there's always people come down.
I recognize the fact we want to hear from you
all There's no doubt about it.
So let's do the two minutes, and we'll see how it goes over.
I will accommodate people to finish their statement after two
minutes, but not too much longer.
So Bridget Brick, could you please explain the process
and call our first speaker?
OK If you would like to address the City Council on this item.
Now and you have not submitted a speaker slip,
now is the time to do so for your attending via Zoom.
Is the time to raise your hand.
We will start within speak in person speakers
once I've reached the last speaker slip,
we will go to our virtual speakers.
We will not come back to our in-person speakers.
So the first speaker and I would like
to I'm going to call pick the speakers.
We'd like you to kind of cue up.
So it kind of keeps the movement going.
So we'll start with Dave Rossi, followed by Stand boghosian,
followed by Becky Rhodes Okay.
First of all, I'd like to thank the applicant for not proposing
a 38 story MAX32665 minute for somebody project like Menlo has.
Nice job.
Thank you.
Also, correction nine units could be 18
with as benign or been last but so 18 years
could be the max on the property.
My name is Dave Rossi.
I grew up on Palomino.
I my parents to live there since 1978.
I played with the cows across the street from this project,
from cardboard boxes down the hill.
I'm very familiar with this property.
And this project.
So when you're talking about evacuation
we're talking about my 83 year old parents
who still live there.
And I love them very much.
Another thing I'd like to address the council for
is your role, and I hope everyone in this audience
understands the council's role.
They are stewards of the HRA.
Their job is to support the HRA They have no authority
except to approve the HRA.
And you're going to hear a lot of words like significant
and unavoidable without having the existing safety
standards that does not pertain for cause for rejection
under the HRA Also, the impact for evacuation.
There's a pre-existing condition of two hours and 54 minutes.
And although the secure guidelines in your calls
is project Avoider, will significant and unavoidable
if because of a preexisting condition which is also not
enforceable by this council, the HRA governs that.
That is an approval process for this project.
It cannot be canceled for those reasons.
And I really want to respect the Council.
The temperatures already seem high when your job is to support
and you are the police for the HRA Your only thing to judge
is whether or not there be a lawsuit related
to a violation of the HRA.
Hey, that's as simple as that.
And with respect to the opposition,
no project in this city will help for evacuation and more
than this project.
Thank you.
You to my parents.
Thank you Good evening.
My name is Stan Boghosian.
I've been involved in community activities in the city
for I don't know, decades, long time, and I have lived here.
Most of my life in Saratoga.
Intuitively, I know I've driven Pierce Road
multiple multiple times and I don't
need thousands and thousands of dollars of traffic studies
to show that you can drive on that road
and know when people are getting out of trying to get off
that road in a fire situation.
In And they're trying to get into either
onto Big Bay some way.
I mean Big Bay some way or Saratoga Sunnyvale road,
it's going to be a mess if it occurs during commute times.
It's horrible.
I think the job of the city councils, number one job
when you're elected, certainly was when I was elected
was public safety.
That's your number one responsibility here.
And you know, it's been quite that's what you're doing here.
The other stuff is great, but that's what you're doing here.
And I see this project at this point.
Certainly as adding to a safety issue.
It's already bad and making it worse
And I don't need to have a degree
from an accredited engineering school to draw that conclusion.
All you need to do is drive up there.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Stan Ladies and gentlemen,
please refrain from applauding.
That is a form of bullying.
If someone doesn't agree with you,
they may be reticent to come up and speak.
So please be respectful of people with other opinions.
If you agree with the speaker, please raise your hand.
Let us know that you agree with them.
Thank you Hello.
My name is Becky Rhodes and I live off
Mountain Eden Road just below the mountain winery
and adjacent to the Mt.
Eden Winery.
I'm a practical person, a no nonsense pragmatic person.
That's what everyone tells me.
But I've got to say, I am extremely excited, namely
worried and scared.
And it's all due to the strong likelihood
good of a fire in the hills and the inability for me, my family,
pets and neighbors who live in a very high fire danger with one
way out to evacuate alive and unharmed.
This is not an unfounded fear.
We all know about the fires in the Palisades,
in the and with people trying to get out with more roads
to get out on than we have.
And many of them did not make it.
They got stranded in their cars.
They tried to run.
They tried to walk.
You can't avoid fire when it comes blowing through.
We also experienced a fire a few years ago just up the hill
from where we live.
I wasn't at home, but my pets were in the house.
Luckily, Rick was able to get home in time to evacuate them,
but he sent pictures.
They were frightening That area was soon
deemed to be shelter in place because they could not
have built rescue and fire vehicles coming in
while people were trying to evacuate out the road.
Couldn't accommodate both at the same time,
what would have happened to my neighbors who are elderly
or infirm ?
How about their children?
Their current children and their pets?
We can't outrun we can't out.
Drive a fire.
If it comes through.
We really have to keep in mind that Pearce Road is already
over capacity.
Fixes can't be done to it, and the evacuation impact
is significant and unavoidable.
So I ask you to deny this project on the safety basis.
Do not deem this this risk as acceptable.
Thank you.
OK.
We've got Richard Larsen, followed by Sonny yule,
followed by Suman.
Goal Hello, I'm Richard Larson.
I'm Becky's partner, housemate.
Everything else we've lived on money and road for 12 years,
and I'm urging you to vote no on a Mason Estate's proposal
to prioritize the safety of the areas currently residents.
I would note that, Mr. Hershman, it's a nice plan,
but he says nothing about anything.
Anyone else in the neighborhood.
It's all about the fire safety of that 25 houses.
This section of Pierce Road that he addresses
is a small fraction of the road.
And it has nothing to do with where I'm
going to have to evacuate it.
I have to evacuate through that narrow stretch over the bridge,
down closer to the flat area.
As Becky mentioned I was driving up Highway 85 and 2017
and I saw Plumas smoke.
I was down in San Jose.
And the smoke was rising up, but high enough that I could see it.
I was heading back to work.
And I got to Saratoga, Sunnyvale Road, and I go,
I don't like that plume.
The smoke.
So I made a left turn.
Then it going to work and rescued our dogs and evacuated.
I'm fortunate I was able to get out right before they shut down
the evacuation.
They literally shut down the evacuation
because they had to bring in heavy equipment.
Ten acres burned that day.
Thanks to our fire department, they were able to put it out.
But the damage, nothing happened.
But we all know that up and down the state of California,
along the urban wildlife interface,
there have been tremendously damaging fires that
cost people's lives and literally billions of dollars
in damage, property damage There are plans for at least
460 houses to a builder's remedy coming up from that 30 day
window that was left open.
This is not about one development.
This is about 460 houses going in on our evacuation corridor
and no one's going to talk about that.
None of their presentations will mention that.
They'll all talk about how fire safe and they are They're not
going to talk about us.
Thank you.
Thank you Depresses me.
No, no, you should be okay.
Oh, okay.
Good evening, Council members, members of City staff and fellow
residents.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to me tonight.
My name is Sunny.
You and I am a resident of the Saratoga Hill site.
I'm here tonight to urge the City Council members to take
seriously the threat of fire and the safety of residents
when considering these extensive developments, development
projects in the hillside area.
The air for the Mason project found
that the evacuation time for the hillside area
is something like two hours, 45 minutes to get 90% of people
out.
And stretching to five hours to get 100 everybody out.
These are staggeringly horrific times.
For comparison, the Palisades fire in SoCal
spread from ten acres to 200 acres in 20 minutes.
And within three hours had gone to 1,200 acres.
To top it off, if all the builders
remedy projects were to go through,
that would add 500 more units, not including the 80 unit hotel
that mountain winery here is planning to add.
The this project is in a very high fire hazard severity zone.
A large portion of the Saratoga hillside
is in the very high fire hazard severity zone.
We should consider how that impacts height.
Then higher density developments in that area The air,
I believe, outlines winds and alternative
lower density housing development for a reason.
You heard about nine houses.
The also the two major evacuation routes,
which is Pierce Road and Mt.
Eden, do pass through these very high fire hazard severity zones.
And in the event of a wildfire, it's very high likelihood
that one of these routes or both of these routes
end up unpassable and that we should take that into account.
Council Member While you asked if there
were a preexisting evacuation standards,
I believe that the city's general plan, which
would have limited this development to a lower
density of nine houses, would have been an inherent stand that
would have been set to limit the evacuation times.
I hope the city council members will do the right thing here.
And to protect those residents.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Sunny.
My next OK, guys, I may need a little time.
So when does this start?
Don't start until I start speaking.
Okay.
Hello?
City Council.
The Mason State Builders Project.
Is Firewise safe?
And gold standard.
But this does not take into account the evacuation process
that is in question.
Remember that as owner of the property, even
without this development they should be responsible owners
and make their land.
Firewise safe no matter what.
As did the Saratoga Heights Homeowners Association.
We are firewise safe because we are responsible homeowners.
Please also be aware that the emergency rule that they
talked about that gives access to all the people
will guess what?
It comes out into Pearce Road, doesn't
help whatsoever Also, the graciously they're
claiming that the 55 acres that they're leaving on
developed at the city at a planning commission meeting
it was pointed out that it does not prevent them in the future
from developing that 55 acres of land.
So don't be fooled by that all the data
that's based on the wildfire that comes with a warning.
But how about the fire within the community that
comes without warning that spreads and people are trapped
with little ability to evacuate?
So I get the need for builders remedy.
I'm not against builders.
Somebody.
I'm against builders Remedy of Pierce Road.
The earthquakes into Account The Lives
of Birds and animals and frogs.
But does not take into account the human life used.
You Set your hands are tied, yet without your approval,
this project cannot proceed The path of least resistance is
to vote in favor of this project.
The Americans spirit is not to take the easy path,
but rather to take the right path.
You all know how dangerous this project and all
the other builders and project are in your heart, what is right
and what is wrong.
I request that you make you not make the easy
and convene your decision, but make the right decision
and vote no for the approval of this project.
Thank you.
Thank you Next, we have manana.
Should go.
Glen Hendricks and Glenda Annie Hello.
Mayor and City Council member staff.
Today I'm asking you a very specific question.
What has changed since July 8th, when the planning Commission
reviewed this and concluded that the EIA and clothing emergency
access response time and evacuation is at or over
capacity?
The applicant mentioned appendix J and I have those pages here.
And it says the consultant says there's already
of volume to capacity ratio of one
or higher without a project on Port Road on both sides
and on Tollgate Eight and on peers meeting overnight.
So imagine with this project and many more lined up what that
will still be overcapacity.
So Saratoga General plan Safety Element Section
5.6 says New development must ensure
effective future evacuation, which is anchored sustained
in consist with the EIA.
Appendix G. Saratoga Plan 5.10 says make improvements
and expand the capacity of emergency evacuation route,
which is not happening either.
The Sica guidelines say evacuation analysis
should consider roadway capacity, which is not happening
here either The here's some starts from Cal
Fire in the last one year, 31 deaths.
Why wildfire deaths eaten and Palisades happened
in the last five years.
81 wildfire that's happened for firefighters.
This is California starts in ten years, 231.
So let's not make Saratoga a possible start in future.
And so you have a decision to make.
And in closing, the planning commission identified the risk.
It has a narrow exception of health and safety exception.
Please look into it.
City attorney can look into it and let us not
let us uphold the Planning Commission decision.
Thank you.
You.
Thank you, Menashe.
Hello, Glen Hendricks.
The Planning Commission could not honestly
determine that the benefits of this project
outweighed the impacts.
Think about that statement.
The positives don't support the negatives.
The only benefit that makes sense about this project is.
So the city doesn't get sued.
So now the project comes to you, and you
have to approve the project, even
though from a wildfire and evacuation perspective
it's a terrible project.
I suggest you approve the yellow EIA on a 3 to 2 vote.
The city doesn't have the resources
to fight a lawsuit with a current law from Sacramento.
You just lose.
But I request.
It's clearly explained to the public
why you are approving the statements of overriding
consideration.
Tell us what you like.
Tell us what you don't like or that you just
don't want to be sued.
The Planning Commission decision was not made an error.
This meeting is proof the HOA process is being legally
followed I'm having a problem with the evaluation time.
And I think it's been misrepresented
and it's the math that's got me bothered
And maybe it's just because I have a us public education
school system thing that's going on.
But the starting condition is that during an evacuation
the road stops, traffic doesn't move.
If traffic's not moving.
I don't understand how you only increase the evacuation
time by 24 seconds.
The problem is the overall traffic
before any new building goes into the hillside.
The evacuation study you have says current conditions today,
the roads stops.
So I don't get work 2020 for second.
Come from.
And it was talked about VMT VMT where
the distance doesn't change.
I haven't heard anybody talk about how many
new vehicles are doing that new VMT for what goes on.
Again, I'm pro you know, some people
are likely to say I think you have to approve this project.
The law says you have to will get sued, will lose.
But tell us why you think you're going
to do what you're going to do and do it on three 1, 2, vote.
Thank you, Glenn I have never used this before,
so hopefully I'm doing it.
All right.
My name is going to Arnie.
I've lived on Pierce Road for over 40 years.
Mason Estates is only going to add 25
250 or more cars on Pierce Road every day While this doesn't
sound like an increase in traffic,
this is not the whole story.
This same developer is planning to build 237 housing
units and an 81 room hotel at Mountain Winery, which
is not in separate yoga.
And these two developments are going to add hundreds of cars
to pierce Road.
Make no mistake, hundreds of cars.
And we are all going to be at risk every day
I don't think the city can deny this application.
I'll just make a couple of comments that based on things
I've heard in the last couple of weeks,
if the city had annexed Mountain Winery in 2020,
the developer would be working with the city on the housing
plan versus using builder's remedy project in reality,
the developer would still be building a lot of housing
and a hotel at Mountain Winery That
would create a lot of traffic on Pierce Road.
This same developer and let's just
blame Sacramento for these builder's remedy projects.
Yes, Sacramento is enabling these projects.
And we need to elect new representatives who
will change these laws.
But for now, these developers are choosing
to use builder's remedy.
So they can do what they want to do.
They're choosing money over the safety of residents
I don't know how to fight these projects,
but for me, going forward, I am only
going to support the developers.
The businesses, the organizations
and the realtors who are not developing or promoting builders
remedy projects in wildfire areas.
And I will try to elect people who
will change the laws to account for safety
of residents in wildfire areas.
Thank you.
Thank you, Glenn.
OK.
Next, we have David AMI followed by Xavier Casanova, then
Bill Dalton.
Hi, I'm Dave Varney otherwise known as Mr. Glinda.
I everybody's already talked about the over capacity during
or the literal stoppage of Pierce Road.
So I was thinking also about is I
don't know, how are you going to deny this given
the HRA and the situation.
So what can we do?
So I had three suggest and I ask you to investigate these and see
if there would pan out.
One, We need alerts, systems even that
go beyond what the fire departments doing
with the shelter in place.
And then warning and then and order.
It's almost like we need a pre warning system.
I feel like I need to become an expert in weather
and wind and light dry lightning and just get out then.
So I don't know if the city can do something especially
for the very high fire area, to go, you know,
just get just get out.
Second idea you know, maybe the developers and other HHR yards,
we could require them to do some more fuel
removal Pierce Road is got all kind of fuel on both sides.
City ID and have money to remove all that stuff that
could block the road because the road's on fire.
And the last idea is, can we connect Pike Road
over to Saratoga Hills up there where those water towers are,
where the old great Grandview Ranch is, that would give me
give me another way to get out.
Thank you Good evening.
My name is Xavier Casanova.
I live off of Houston court, which is basically Pierce Road.
I grew up in Paris with a lot more concrete than nature.
When I came to the bay Area as a Stanford student,
I started exploring the Bay Area Driving through the South
Georgia Hills on my way to Skyline Boulevard,
I fell in love with the trees, the vegetation
and the natural beauty of these hills.
14 years ago.
My wife and I chose Saratoga as the place
to raise our family Our two boys were
just four and eight years old.
But we've also learned how vulnerable this place can be.
In 2020, we watched the sky.
Turn orange because of the wildfires.
In 2023, we lost our fire insurance.
We lost our insurance policy for a house,
and we had to go to a fair plan.
And then in January 2025, the Eaton Fire the
devastated Altadena near Caltech.
When my son studies and we go to 2 a.m.
call from him, if actuating because the campus was
at risk, suddenly evacuation wasn't something like a report.
It was my own son getting out of the path of a wildfire.
And tonight the city's own study tells us
that evacuating the hillsides could take approximately already
takes approximately Five hours.
This is our home.
We know these hills are vulnerable.
We know evacuation is already difficult.
And the next wildfire will not wait for us to fix our mistakes.
Don't make it harder on my family or my neighbors.
And on every family that those hills in those heels
to get out of out safely when the day comes.
Please As with the safety of these families
who already live there first.
And the nicer you.
Thank you, Xavier Good evening again.
Well, I happened to live in the flatlands
and won't be impacted by this.
I still don't understand how we can
find the benefit yet of this project
outweighs the negatives All right.
Hopefully you can find the silver bullet
and deny the project Kiwi have Mohini followed by Moana Cower,
followed by Sophia Ko Yeah, I kind of like the.
Good evening, Mayor and council members.
We strongly urge you to uphold the Planning Commission's
denial of on estates and put public safety first.
Misogynistic.
It's proposes 25 homes on Pearce Road, a narrow winding road,
one lane in each direction already burdened
by residential and mountain winery traffic.
It was never designed for this intensity of development
and cannot simply be widened and massone estates cannot be
considered in isolation.
The same developer proposes 237 housing units and an 81 room
hotel at the adjacent mountain winery.
It may be on the county jurisdiction,
but traffic does not recognise jurisdictional boundaries.
Neither does Wildfire Together, these development points
could add hundreds of vehicles to the same constrained hillside
roads.
This is not about traffic inconvenience.
This is about evacuation and life safety.
During a wildfire, residents will
be trying to get out while emergency responders are trying
to get in on Pearce Road.
There's little margin for error residents are doing our part
home hardening, clearing vegetation and preparing
for evacuation.
But we cannot widen.
Pearce Road or create evacuation capacity.
Government controls, development decisions.
So I ask, what public benefit justifies this additional risk?
We have also heard conflicting information about the number
of affordable homes.
Affordable housing must be real, clearly defined and enforceable.
Not simply a label that enables greater density.
The community should not bear increased traffic, evacuation
risk and permanent hillside impacts.
When the primary benefit accrues to the developer,
the HRA provides housing protections,
but public safety must remain paramount Council members,
you are entrusted with protecting this city,
its residents and community.
Please uphold the Planning Commission's denial.
We cannot undo a tragedy after the fact.
Public safety must come first.
Thank you.
Thank you Good evening.
So I've spoken in front of you many, many times.
So i actually just want to respond today to this letter
that you received, which suggests
that builders remedy basically ties your hands
and that denying this project somehow makes you anti housing.
And that is simply not true.
This is not about being for housing or against housing.
It is about whether this particular project
in this particular location is safe
And these safety concerns are not hypothetical.
We all know that cities own evacuation study, 2.2 hours,
45 minutes.
We put all of that.
And that assumes that everything goes right, which
means every road stays open.
There is no fallen trees, no disabled cars, no blocked roads,
and no interference from emergency operations The study
itself describes this as a best case scenario
and says that evacuation times would
increase if roads were closed.
So please do not allow an outside advocacy organization
to reduce this to a very simplistic slogan of housing,
where, say versus anti housing.
Yimby is not a law.
It's an advocacy position.
The Housing Accountable Act is the law.
And your job is to apply that law to the actual facts
and evidence before you not to an outside groups
definition of what pro housing is supposed to mean.
And you know, frankly, it's very strange
to see a housing advocacy group take a position that
feels so anti-people.
So if being pro housing means brushing aside
whether the people who will actually live there
and the neighbors around them can safely
evacuate a wildfire here, then something
is very wrong with the reasoning.
Yimby is not pro housing.
They are just pro units.
Even the language quoted in Yimby's own letter
recognizes that a specific adverse impact on public health
or safety matters.
The Planning Commission looked at this evidence
and voted five zero to deny this project.
Please uphold that decision.
Deny the appeal and put public safety first.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mona OK.
Good evening Mayor and councilman.
I'm Sophia Cao, a long time resident up here through.
I support affordable housing.
This affordable housing unit are central to the Project Builder's
Remedy status and are cited as a benefit supporting approval.
If the Council relies on that benefit,
it should ensure this home's art delivers through
and enforceable process.
This unit are four bedroom approximately 2370
five square foot detached hillside homes.
A restricted self-pride alone does not
show whether ownership will remain sustainable
for a qualifying low income household.
Buyers must also pay taxes insurance, which
is very important in this.
Hi fi risk area.
Maintenance Utility and HOA dues.
Yet the posted material provide neither HOA budget
nor a purchase specific insurance
estimate Council should require disclosure
under a short a total monthly housing cost
and explain how it will be verified CP-5 requires sales
to qualify in low income household, all in a 45 year
restriction But CP-4 requires only
permit applications before a 13 C building permit request.
Not completion or proportional occupancy
with the market rate homes.
Saratoga, New or B PM ordinance s
requires council concur rent construction in proportion
no occupancy because this project predates that ordinance.
Please identify what enforceable condition
provides equivalent to protect it before voting.
Please clarify who will verify my eligibility
and administer it.
Selection on how total housing cost will be calculated
and the deadline for complete eating and occupying
all five homes.
Thank you.
You.
Thank you, Sophia.
Next, we have Sabrina, then scores Nikki will,
and then I believe it's.
Is it Bomb balloon?
Follow Can you please just give me tens to get my notes?
I certainly think you appreciate that So
my name is Sabrina Vance.
Because I'm a sequel lawyer.
I also do housing rights.
Lawyer, represent tenants and groups
that want to protect housing, protect tenants.
I've been practicing for about 25 years,
secretly land use and housing rights I reject the notion.
And by the way, I represent citizens for Responsible
and Equitable Development, a nonprofit organization
in in this community I reject the notion that the legislature
intended intended the builders remedy law
to Trump public health and safety.
I do not think that one can interpret
the HCA to actually say that.
I believe that if that were the case,
the HCA would not have a public safety exception.
Now, my friend here, who I respect as an attorney,
I know he knows this stuff and reasonable minds can disagree,
but I would ask you to think about whether or not
it makes rational and logical sense
to say that the subdivision map Act findings are essential.
Lee Moot because the HCA trumps the subdivision map Act,
but that is what my friend would like you to believe.
I don't think that the language of the HCA
supports that kind of interpret patient.
If it did, the HCA would say the Subdivision Map
Act is exempt in HCA builders.
For many projects, it doesn't One
has to read the law in harmony with other laws that
are not expressly exempt.
So you have to read the subdivision Map
Act as requiring you to make the findings that are required
in the subdivision and Map Act.
And you cannot do so because the way that the staff report reads
is that you it doesn't even make the finding.
It says we do not make the finding because of the well,
I'm already at the end.
She's over a couple more things to say, if you don't mind.
Please, please 15 seconds.
Don't.
We don't do that.
Thank you.
The Well, I'll just.
I'll end it here.
If there ever was a time to reject the to reject a project
and exercise your police powers, this is the time to do it.
You approve this one, and you're going
to have to approve all of them because you
will have created a precedent and you will
have hit that first domino.
And the rest of them go, Thank you.
And I appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Good evening, Mayor and council members.
My name is Nicole Bolick Kristin and I live at 21720 Villa Oaks
Lane here in Saratoga.
I'm asking you to uphold the Planning Commission's denial
and to make findings that hold up on review.
I want to be clear about who bears the impact.
25 households is what the project adds.
The people who carry the risk are
everyone already living along.
Peirce Road who receive no benefit from the project
and absorb all the added demand on the way out.
And a sequel to the Baseline is existing condition.
So the question in front of you is not
whether 25 families can evacuate It
is what happens to the neighborhood that is already
there when those families join them on the same road.
The record calls the second road an emergency vehicle access road
if it's being counted as evacuate from capacity,
the findings should say.
So plainly and should state whether it's gated.
Where terminates.
As I understand it, it returns to another stretch
of Peirce road feeding into Highway nine, which will already
be overwhelmed with the households that live further
up Highway nine.
Second, the law.
I have heard that the HRA leaves this council
no choice but government code Section 65589.
5D2 provides a health and safety pathway for denial and requires
the specific adverse impact that is quantifiable.
I would ask the city Attorney to state on the record
whether denial is legally unavailable
or whether this is a judgment about litigation risk.
Those are different things.
And the residents of this city deserve to know.
And if the record lacks the quantified analysis
that the statute requires, I ask that you continue
this matter and direct staff to commission an independent health
and safety and evacuation study in the city's
own name on a defined timeline.
I support.
Well out housing that doesn't exist in residents at risk,
especially for three low income and two
below market rate units, which is not
an acceptable acceptable benefit for the city.
While putting hundreds of families at risk.
Thank you for your time Thank you, Mayor and council members,
for allowing me to talk.
I'm not going to repeat everything that's happened here.
I have a really very pragmatic, simple question.
I hear clearly that it was related to health and safety.
You can deny, deny this request.
So i am totally puzzled because it's
very clear the data shows that it is impacting health
and Safety at the same time, the city and the fire department
is making exceptions.
Which I just don't understand.
We know there are so many exceptions
made, including the number of units and also the setbacks.
We're making accommodations on setbacks.
I don't even get it.
You have so many reasons you can use to deny this.
And if you're worried about lawsuits,
you should also consider what happens if there is a fire.
You will have hundreds of lawsuits against the city.
That city approved knowingly that it affects the safety
and of the people of Saratoga.
I have lived with my family in saratoga,
and I passed through the road for the last 38 years.
And I don't know how many times that road gets blocked
for one reason or the other.
A tree falls down.
That is a land in a landslide and so on and so forth.
So it's not Steve, how many people can pass through there,
whether it's even available.
In fact, there was a fire up on the mountain and hills,
and we are actually preparing to evacuate.
And we were told that we can't go through mountain
and because they had all the fire trucks there.
So even the availability of the road is not guaranteed.
And now if you add this many units as many people have said,
it is not just a slippery slope.
Once your procedural tool like more
and you'll have a serious health and safety situation.
I don't know how you can deny that.
I really request the council to uphold the Planning Commission's
denial of mass initiatives.
Thank you.
Below came the last speaker slip I have is from Mahal.
Mohan A few things stick out from everything
that we've been exposed to, everything we've heard.
First is there is a constant assertion that the HRA is
the job of this committee is just
to infer approve or be there and move on
And I have equally well heard that there is actually
an exception to the HRA.
If there is a real fire and evacuation at risk and the air
and the various documents that for referenced made statements
about unmitigated will high risk of evacuation.
So what the city council does, if it actually overrules
the planning commission judgment and allows this project
to go forward, is to set aside the concern for the welfare
of the citizens and a wildfire situation
are trying to evacuate the town in order
to somehow be good voice under the state's HRA mandate.
I think there is a misstatement and a misinterpretation that
is being promulgated here that the HRA has
no exceptions at all.
You can see the fire department here made a bunch of exceptions
in terms of 30ft setback or a whole bunch of other
considerations and only evaluated water access and road
front does something like that.
It's it's like a sewer.
It's full of holes in terms of allowing for this
as a fire safe development.
So I asked that you don't have fire and blood
on your hands by overlooking the well articulated
under documented safety risks of this very
next piece of the hills.
That's also a high fire risk area.
And overall, the Planning Commission
said in order to just sort of make it easy for yourself,
Thank you.
K for go to our virtual.
Let's see if there's anyone else who'd
like to speak before I move, because we're not
going to come back to anybody in the chambers.
So anyone else would like to come up to speak.
Please come up and speak My name is Elaine Dalio.
I did not to thinking I will ever speak today,
but after I hear all of the things.
And by the way, I live near the pierce lode,
I go out and home every day through Pierce.
So i was thinking before you make the vote first,
I think that News the fire is early,
so I think you need to remember how much fire was there.
I think everybody know that.
And the fire is from the mountain
and then goes all the way.
So I think never will happened to us Another thing is if fire.
What happened to the Pierce Pierce is too small.
So before you approved anybody, I
think you should just to make a project, make Pierce better
or make another way.
I think that would be good for our citizens.
OK.
As all.
Saratoga that we have to do something good for our family
and the kids wherever and the John rush to the judges
want to approve anything before you make a wrote to be safe.
And then you can do other things also in the while fire
and that there is no way you can actually do anything.
You're putting more people in to those mountain.
You actually create more accident.
That's what I think.
OK.
So please just think about if you are living in the mountain,
if you have something happen to your family what
are you going to do?
Please make sure the exit is a very important.
And then make it exit.
Then you can have more people by the way,
for the loading come February.
I think on the flat area near the public station
is a more suitable for them.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
By.
Okay great Oh.
Oh.
Thank you.
To the City Council members to give us
a couple of minutes to speak.
I had only a couple of questions.
The 30 foot setback that was required
in the very high respire zone, I. Why is that not being met?
And what does the written specification which allows it
to be instead interpreted as just the distance between
the two homes the written law says that it has to be 30ft
setback.
What what is the written record that allows it
to be interpreted differently?
I would like for the city to explain that that has not
been quite answered.
The second is the 30 foot setback
is not being met, as far as I understand,
by the below market and the low income houses.
How is it that as a city.
We decide that the lower income houses with.
It's called the low market or low income?
Why they alone don't deserve the safety requirements of the 30
foot setback.
Those are my two questions.
Thank you.
Thank you Hi, my name is Steve Overcast.
I live on Surrey Lane Living here for 26 years.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity
to speak for the last for most of this year
I've been on crutches for a variety of reasons.
So suddenly this discussion about evacuation and X
and address make a lot of sense to me
for completely different reasons than I was here last year.
Having making comments on a similar project on our road.
I live much further down on Surrey Lane on Pierce
than the Mass on.
Project.
However, the fact that getting out and getting around
and especially for people like with disabilities and hopefully
my next year.
I'm going to be good again.
But I know there are people on more permanent and worse
situations than I am.
And I just want to make sure that we are thinking of them.
Thinking of how it is impacts everybody.
And not just people who are able to get in a car
and drive away, which sadly, I'm not able to do for a few months.
Thank you.
Thank you OK, We'll move to our remote speakers.
Oh, if anybody else wants to speak, please come down.
Forward.
So you don't We can get that.
All right.
Is it on?
Yep.
All right.
I'm going to be very brief and I'm just
going to talk about math.
Some very, very basic math that any lawyer could easily
explain to any jury the message is this one.
So we are talking about not just Mason Estates
We're talking about seven other developments on Pierce Road.
If you do some basic math, we're talking about 450 homes,
families of four.
If I do the math correctly, we are talking about 1,800 people
a additional 1800 people living on Pierce Street and using
Pierce Road on a daily basis I advise you all to drive Pierce
Road.
It is narrow and surrounded by flammable bull oaks
That's all I'm going to say.
1800 people more that would need to be evacuated.
And again, we're not talking about just Mason estate.
It might be defensible on its own,
but when you look across all seven projects that
are going to be approved, if this one gets
approved This is you need you to think about your safety
and think how you will be defending yourself if you know
it's the city council in the future has to defend themselves
against the fact that we you will
have jeopardized the safety of the residents living on.
Password.
Thank you.
OK.
I think we're cool for online.
Okay.
First is Rafi.
Sure.
Turn to speak in.
Great.
Can you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
OK.
Good evening.
My name is terrific Power and I live on Mount Eden Road.
And I'm.
I'm here to say some things simple, which
is this city can fight this.
Other cities have.
And I don't believe we truly tried it, you know,
for months we've been told what Saratoga cannot do.
Our hands are tied.
The state won't let us.
Every conversation starts from this surrender.
But what?
What?
That isn't what is happening elsewhere in California.
Communities up and down the state
have pushed back on project exactly like this one.
And they've won some used the public safety
exception the same one available to you tonight.
And by the way, I still haven't heard
a valid clearly articulated argument
as to why our current written standards.
The state fires safety road rules, our fire code,
our own safety plan can't be considered written.
Objective standards in place prior to the application
I haven't heard that argument being made
or why we're not fighting that that is a valid argument.
Other cities went straight to their legislators
and got themselves written out of these rules entirely.
Santa Barbara did that in a single session, One
neighborhood, one senator signed into law.
They didn't win because their situation was better than ours.
Ours is worse They won because their cities decided to fight.
You know, I've also heard the argument
that if the city doesn't approve this project,
there's a risk that builders remedy opportunities could
open up again.
The state could decertify our housing element.
Has that risk been truly quantified?
Have we thought about whether that might be worth
letting happen to fight this?
You know, we've been told by the city
that it can push back when there are objective written health
and safety standards on the books.
So fine, adopt them.
Now, this month that will protect us
if we're faced with another builder's remedies
situation in the future.
Because we fought this one.
That's just one idea from one resident.
But I just want to see our city working aggressively
on this on this approach.
I understand there's risk in fighting.
But I want you to weigh honestly against the risk of not fighting
If we if we fight and we thank you
for this litigation that's money.
It's painful.
But if the city doesn't fight, we
get this project and the next one and the next one on a road.
You already know is unsafe.
Thank you.
Thank you Next is timely.
And I'm telling all.
And I live on Mount eden.
Right directly under a mountain in a winery.
And often here, the concerts from Mountain Winery.
And we moved here a year ago with our four kids and our two
dogs.
And we're very active in the community.
And we quickly found out that we have this development that's
been proposed.
2200 has a development right next door to us,
and Mount Eden has one right across the street
located on the east side of Mount Union Road between Villa
Oaks Lane and Vista.
Regina.
It's very terrifying to know that there
are three developments that are sitting within a couple
feet of our house that could impact our ability to get out.
I don't know if you've ever been to the Mountain Winery concerts.
They're great until you hit the traffic.
If you're ever on Mount Union Road
and you're trying to turn on appears
to leave or exit the community.
And you could be sitting there for 20 minutes waiting
for a break in the traffic as people are trying
to get off of pure street.
You could be on Piers for 30 minutes waiting
at the line at Saratoga, Sunnyvale,
trying to get back on to the freeway.
And this is without a plane behind you.
The traffic on Piers Road that has become from this property
is immense.
And it impacts the local community.
Another thing that I want to state
is that the applicant also mentioned
that they have no brush management and no evacuation
plan.
However, they encourage and invite people to their venue
all the time.
This puts the local community already at risk.
Why would we trust this applicant
knowing that this is already a risky situation, that he's been
involving the community in.
And now he wants to further develop
on this property for his own personal gains?
I didn't know about the hotel That's.
Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
That's definitely something I need to be more engaged in,
as well as I'm sure there's no benefit to low income housing
there.
I know that that might be in Santa Clara County,
but of course, it still impacts your residents.
So I just hope that you really think
through the precedent that you'll be setting,
not only with this development and the other developments
and the risks that you're already
putting on your local residents with the fire evacuation
issues on Pierce.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tony Next is Bina Hello.
Can you yes, go ahead.
Hi, my name is Peter.
And good evening, council members.
I'm Richard Quest that you would divide project meeting
on in on the transport on a mountain road.
And I think it a very dangerous idea
to approve anything like this.
And then have this cascading effect
of having other projects with a positive precedent Yes.
It also signal growth going up and down
one lane up and one game down, winding Dr. Kobes and then
lots of trees off the site.
And it looks like the fire department has been on a roll.
It has been very flexible in order
to accommodate this project And this whole thing about it
being some sort of an advantage for housing
and providing housing and adding all these forms of forms
to elsewhere.
In the end, they're all going to be with us
and a more risky situation while the builder makes his money
and walks away it just becomes more and more dangerous
as years go by and congestion builds up on these roads.
You know, this road even gets very congested.
Like some people said when mountain Mind has control,
it just gets clogged up and it takes a long time
to go one way or the other.
And I can just imagine quietly trying to come up
or an emergency vehicle trying to go down or whatever.
And cars are stuck.
There's no way to make exit that road
and let the fire truck pass in that situation.
So it's just extremely dangerous and you know,
it's just a fact of the precedent that this would set.
That makes me think that this is a very blocking tool in order
for us not to have to take a losing backing in the future
to get them to.
So anything you could do, could you
go through President and safety on people's property?
Thank you.
Next is an iPhone Hi, this is Brady.
I live on Pierce Road and i would
like to echo several of the speakers.
I mean, the commenters ideas, specifically graphics
and the lawyers and the lady with the map
putting in total 1800 more people on pierce.
It doesn't make any sense.
It's dangerous in many places.
And Pierce Street, if you go up and down this road,
are literally touching the road.
If there's a fire somebody hits the side sign
and is going to come and no one can get out.
If a fire engine is trying to come in,
it's going to block people because it's
going to push into the road and people can't drive by.
Everyone who signs up on this is basically
exposing the city to liability because we're
signing off on this.
The guys were coming up at the traffic protection who
haven't done a proper job They're also exposing us
to this risk.
The five firemen who are basically being very
relaxed in looking at every thing.
I've also I've creating more risk on all the existing people
who live there.
It doesn't make any sense to add more people
to an already dangerous road.
I highly recommend we take the two ideas to basically bypass
and stop this due to safety.
Thank you.
I have no other speakers.
Okay.
Then we will close the public comment period
and bring it back to council.
I see that it's 10:45.
I think.
We would normally take a break in about 15 minutes.
Do you want to take a quick one now,
or shall we go forward for Oh, we got the.
Appellant Yes, sorry.
Gosh, I'm losing it here.
So yeah, please, the appellant can come back up.
And I'm so sorry Good evening, Mayor Paige and members
of the City Council.
My name is Brian Winter and I'm the land use and secure attorney
on behalf of the applicant, I am going
to try to simplify the two things that we're wrestling
with tonight as best I can.
Just briefly, I've been doing this also for about 25 years.
I've also served as a city attorney.
I've been involved in the drafting of SB 330
and numerous others of the state housing laws,
including many of the recent amendments to the AG going back
over the last 8 or 10 years.
If you go back to the inception in 1982,
it was originally a one paragraph statute
that didn't say very much, and it's
been amended 25, 26 times at this point,
always in the direction of strengthening the law.
If you read the statute carefully,
you can see that the legislature very much recognizes
that the lack of housing in California
and the denial of housing projects
are improper reasons is actually a significant negative effect
on the environment.
Says that itself, if you read it carefully,
the source substantive reference to secure is in subsection E,
and it it acknowledges that development projects
must comply with secure whatever given project requires.
If you look at secure.
So you have an agency where the two major laws you're wrestling
with tonight if you look at secure and section 21 000G
secure recognized is the need to provide housing for every
Californian.
If you look at section 21004 of the public resources code
and 15040 of the secure guidelines,
those sections explain very clearly
that secure is not an independent source
of legal authority.
And in fact secure is subject to the authorities set forth
in other laws such as the Housing Accountability Act.
Secret secret does not operate in a vacuum and nothing
in sequel or anywhere else says that, quote, trumps the Housing
Accountability Act.
If you go back and look at the housing
Accountability Act, including reason amendments to the HRA,
the legislature has added the state wide policy
that public agencies are required to afford the fullest
possible way to the interest, approval
and provision of housing.
They've also added a statement in there
that the circumstances that give rise
to a specific adverse impact quote,
arise infrequent, where the legislature knows what they're
doing, they're aware of the broader universe in California
and other events that happen.
They are still putting a heavy hand
on the scale in favor of housing.
The HRA also establishes, and this
has been interpreted in various cases
the only basis to say no to a housing development project.
The only way to do it is by making
the specific adverse impact findings.
Those findings cannot be made here and they cannot be made
with the passage of any amount of time.
The city attorney, I believe made that clear at the Planning
Commission meeting, and you're welcome to ask
him to agree with me or not on that on that tonight.
But there is no dot in order to make a specific adverse impact
finding, there has to have been a written document that
was in effect as of the date the project application was deemed
complete, against which when you look at the project,
he would conclude it would have a significant, direct,
quantifiable and unavoidable impact.
And it has to be supported by a preponderance
of the evidence in the record, not substantial evidence.
It's a higher standard.
There is no document here.
There was no document in effect as of the date.
This application is incomplete There
isn't one today against which those findings can be made.
But the simple fact is this project cannot be disapproved.
The findings can't be made, and I will also
note that you've heard a couple of times the mentioned
that this project sets a precedent
or would set a precedent for you.
There is no such thing as land use precedent in California
or anywhere else in this country,
there's there's no case establishing that when
a public agency takes an action on a given development project.
It must take that action on every other project.
Every project stands on its own.
We stand on our own.
We've worked very hard to make this a great project to address
everything that we can possibly address
to make it a good project for the community
And we have met every requirement.
And I do respectfully ask that you grant our appeal
and allow this project to proceed.
Thank you.
You got another minute?
Anything you want to build?
Anybody want to say Only if there's any questions.
Does the council have any questions?
No, thank you.
Okay.
All right.
Council, Do we have questions of staff?
I know a bunch of questions have been raised,
and I think we probably want to ask them.
Shall we do it now and take a break after we're
done with that, the okay.
All right.
Let's go for a break.
But okay Yeah and go ahead.
I just want to thank everyone for speaking out tonight.
I do have a question.
This is probably for our legal counsel.
Does the city have any legal basis
to deny this project under the builder's remedies
provisions of the HRA?
Specifically, is there any objective written health
or safety standard that this project fails
to meet that would provide us a lawful basis for denial There
is not any objective health and safety standard that meets
the requirements of the builder's remedy
that this project isn't consistent with.
So there's no standard that could form the basis of a denial
under the builder's remedy provisions of the HRA.
OK Can I just ask for a few more?
Yep So people talk about, you know,
very concerned about the significance and audible wealth
of all wildfire impact Any new development in this high fire
hazard hillside area would not result in a second effect.
And avoidable wildfire evacuation impact.
I can't answer that question.
Generally I'm not a person who does evacuation impact analysis.
So that's not in my expertise and more.
So I can't answer questions about other projects.
We know how the impact analysis worked for this project.
We haven't seen the analysis or review
of any other project in the very high severity fire zone.
So let's say if just the nine units, if they were going
to be just nine units, would there
still create the significant and laudable wildfire impact?
Again we haven't done that analysis.
I think that's right.
Did we do the analysis?
No, we haven't done this.
We had one alternative in the air
that included the a nine unit version of the project.
We didn't do the quantitative analysis of evacuation time.
Six.
It doesn't require us to analyze the alternative
at that level of detail.
So I don't know that answer for certain.
What I can say is that the standard
of significance that we used in the air
was extremely conservative.
And we determined that any addition
to evacuation time of any size would be a significant impact.
So I can't run the numbers on a nine unit project,
but we do know that if it added anything to evacuation time,
then it would be considered significant under the standards
we used in this year So you're saying just adding a 80,
you were will create that kind of impact?
I don't know the answer to that.
That's a that is a matter of analysis that we haven't done.
Okay.
Can you I mean, someone just mentioned about the Santa
Barbara lawsuit.
Can you comment on that?
Do we know what the result or any lawsuit?
I don't know specific what what that commenter
was talking about.
I do know that there was a controversial project approved
in Santa Barbara hillside in in a similar fire zone that
eventually was subject to legislation
and that I believe exempted it from the builder's remedy
or at least allowed consideration of fire impact
within the builders remedy that that was a specific statute that
was adopted by the legislature or not directly aimed
at this project.
But that covered this project and was inspired by it.
So that's how that's how Richard may have a little bit
more detail Let's talk about the this law
received a fair amount of press.
The I believe it was the Senate president pro
tem used her power to get this law through and it exempted.
It was a law that said for projects in counties,
in cities and counties with a population bigger than this.
And smaller than this.
And it turned out that the only place that applied
was for this project near the Santa Barbara mission.
And the legislature did pass that law.
So there has been litigation about it.
I don't know where that all stands but we don't.
Your council has met with our legislators
on a number of occasions.
You've asked them to work with these laws
and you have been with even the most minor change.
At one point, you asked them when
allocating the arena to consider wildfire risk, you said,
We just want a bag.
When they're allocating arena to treat wildfire.
The same as flooding.
Was your proposal and your legislature of representatives
said no, we do not want to propose legislation
that would allow consideration of fire risk
in allocating arena.
So give me you've made the effort.
That's where it's been.
And that's where it stands And I note
that the fact that they require hired legislation to,
uh, to get out of the builders remedies
suggests that without that legislation,
they would have been subject to the builders remedy in precisely
the way this project is asking us.
Maybe One last one.
What would be the legal consequence
is if the City Council denies this project tonight?
that's more up to the applicant than to me.
But I think that a lawsuit is likely
and I have stated what I believe the law tells us we need to do.
And that that position would be the subject of that lawsuit,
telling the court that we did not do what the law tells,
tells us to do.
I think in addition to that, there
would be additional scrutiny from HCD
which pays some attention to what we're doing in Saratoga.
I think they would be paying closer attention to what
we'd be doing in Saratoga.
There's possibility of lawsuits from other groups
housing rights groups have the right
to bring a lawsuit similar to the applicants
and all of those lawsuits would be likely to, if successful
to include attorney's fees awards in which the city would
end up paying for those fees.
Thank you.
Okay.
Anybody else you know I have a few questions.
I was jotting down as residents were raising them,
but I'm going to follow up with where Gabe,
you were responding to on the questions for Gabe and Richard.
Whoever wants to answer, I think i heard what the answer is.
But I would ask you a very specific.
Holly, can Saratoga I use the existing evac coersion capacity
problem as outlined in the fair in periods
report that exists on Pier road currently
as the basis for denying misogynistic rates when given
what I heard from Bill hershman was on the state's project
applicant that that project specific evaluation
analysis shows either point four or point nine, depending on you
include or not include marked in mind 3.4.
9 minute increase in evacuation time We cannot not
because of the size of the impact or anything,
but because we do not the city does not have a specific written
standard that the project is inconsistent with concerning
that evacuation time, there's no rule that we have that says this
amount of evacuation time is too much or something of that sort.
I see What about I, I think no, thank
you so much to each one of you who has.
I'm talking about the residents who
have come here today and spoken and expressed your concerns.
I think Maynard's brought up the point about the safety element.
You're coating things So I know, Gabe,
you have recently once again, read
the safety element is the one that management
action or anything else you have seen
that could be considered an objective standard.
Well, when I reread the safety element, um, the standards
or the policies of the safety element
are not the sort of objectives, standards that would create
a health and safety standard that we could use
to deny the project under the Housing Accountability
Act, the standard that the Speaker mentioned, if I recall,
you said that there has to be an effect of evacuation plan
effective is not an objective standard.
It requires the application of judgment
and that under the under the law's definition
is not an objective standard.
That would be something very specific,
quantifiable, that would that we can quantification
is the easiest route to being an objective standard.
There might be other ways to do it.
The word effective is not okay and we don't
have anything like that today.
Do not there has been a question brought up
by multiple residents based on the response from County Fire
folks that exceptions have been made for either the 30 foot
setback or the grade.
The slope around the access ways to get around
tollgate area or something.
I mean.
Which is not abutting this, but both those two exceptions
to in the process of assessing this project,
what's your comment on that?
Is that how can we the council say those exceptions are okay,
help us walk through that.
Those exceptions are allowed under law
and are given to the county fire department
to determine whether making the exception is warranted.
And they have made that determination in those two cases
that the exception is warranted.
So the project is consistent with those fire standards.
The standards include the exception process
They've got the exceptions.
So they're consistent with the standard.
So they don't.
So those standards, then don't form a basis of denial
because the project meets them subject to the exception.
So we have the County Fire approval, correct based
on those exceptions, Correct.
So as far as read, the city are concerned,
we have that approval.
So we are not the ones making that exception.
Exactly.
If a resident feels strongly, then that response ability
lies with county fire.
Correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Bill mentioned non buildable easement
and I believe he also mentioned it was a couple of hours ago.
I think he said, you can't go and build an Adu.
How valid would that be?
It's a non buildable easement.
Again, talking off the 30 foot setback between our distance
between structures.
Is that a legal position?
Because in my time ten years planning commission,
six years on council, I've lost track of how many times
the state has mandated reducing the setbacks for addus non
buildable easement.
Yes I think that is an easement, as is
a limitation on property rights and any roads
duction and setbacks probably.
I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
We need to do the analysis.
But I think that the easement would would still not
be buildable regardless of setback requirements.
Richard gave us much more familiar with the details.
But I think we do have you know, we
will work to make sure the document
to do everything we can do.
So that the they operate as intended.
But as has been, as you noted in your initial question,
when the state legislature decides
to say that general plans, which when I went to law school,
were called the Constitution of Development,
when they say that the Constitution doesn't apply,
I can't say that the legislature won't pass
a law that says a restriction.
We've we have prepared in connection
with the plan might apply.
But I can't say that we will work
to make these documents do what they intended under the law.
As it stands today.
Thank you.
One clarify question for members of the public.
They talked about, I think couple of persons
spoke about the affordable requirements.
I think Sophia raised that issue for us.
Sophia, call how do you mandate how do you ensure that stays?
And can you just quickly into a sentence
as explained that how that is taken care
of in two sentences at when the final map for this project
comes back, we will include as part of the final map package
agreements, covenants that apply to those the lots where
the affordable housing units are that require for that they meet
the affordability standards and that stays with the land.
Correct?
That stays with the land If there's
a term that the length of that covenant, the years
of that covenant is set in the builders remedy law
and it will be there will stay with the land for that term
Okay.
And there's nothing.
I know that.
I'm just I know Sophia is still here and somebody else.
There is that issue.
So the answer is it becomes enforceable through an agreement
that we apply to the land at at the time of the final approval.
OK.
Thank you.
And I hopefully the last question
There may be one more multiple people
have brought up the slippery slope, the cumulative Builders
Remedy project and Development in the Hills.
Can you just walk us through that yet?
Okay.
What is it in front of us tonight?
This project is in front of you tonight.
This is the only project that you're deciding on.
And this is the project that the legal requirements
of the HOA that we've discussed apply to this project in that we
don't have a ground to deny this project to the extent
that there is no precedent, there
is no ongoing effect of this approval on the next approval
or the one after that.
The state law will still apply to those,
but we're deciding on this one.
Can I take into my considering action?
Is it appropriate for me to take into my consideration
that there are more builders remedy projects in the hillsides
and that cumulative impact that should be considered
in my argument The Housing Accountability Act
does not include that consideration as one
of the reasons we're allowed to deny this project.
Okay.
Thank you, Richard.
Is there any other high level question
that residents may have asked that we have not yet covered?
I just wanted to say that if I missed something or one of us
missed something, I know Yarn asked quite a few questions.
No, I mean, I think the you know, this is a very, you know,
troubling set of laws that we have to operate under
But I think Dave has outlined that law.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Mayor.
Thanks for creating I have one question.
I just want to go back to the evacuation time
and the objective standard.
And you said that effective is not objective.
I completely understand that.
Does any city have a standard like this that, you know,
not that I know of.
We have done some preliminary work
to look at that and not found an evacuation time
standard in California.
Hmm.
That's i am I mean, I don't know where it would go anyway.
It's like, well, hey, tens is okay with 20 is not good.
I don't want anybody to get stuck.
No, there isn't anyone else.
And then I guess I do have one question for the appellant We
heard a speaker talk about they said that there was no brush
management or evacuation plan.
I could have sworn I heard something.
Bill the the HOA was going to manage vegetation and manage
brush.
I'm sorry, I so one of the speakers
said that they didn't hear that there
was any plan to manage brush or have an evacuation plan.
I could have sworn I heard that the HOA was going
to do some things to keep it.
A Firewise community.
I heard two different things.
One, because the project.
But I heard someone else say that we had never
had a plan at the mountain winery for the last ten years.
Maybe you could elaborate.
So to answer the first one, Carol Sir,
which is one of the reasons we met her, because we
were had a plan for 15 years.
Yes, 15 years.
We were one of the first people to do a fire clearing
area, to do a at the winery.
They of the fire safety Council came to us.
And we were one of the first experimental groups.
We have our own fire system at the mountain wineries
so I kind of take pride in the fact
that we manage that property very, very well.
So there is a plan to respond to your second question,
there's there will be conditions imposed
through this process that will require us to build
within our 16 hours As as a city attorney has pointed out,
it will be reviewed the whole set of 16 hours
will be reviewed before the map is filed,
which includes the responsibility
to maintain in the future all these various.
So it will be it'll be police based through the HOA,
but there's also a requirement.
It's not a direct analogy, but it's
sort of like weed abatement.
We're going to be required to have a third party in spec that
on a regular basis to make sure that we're the HOA is here
in those standards.
OK.
Yeah.
If you're doing the gold standard for correct
test and correct.
OK I thought that I heard that.
And I just want to clear it up.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Okay.
No more no other questions.
OK, then we'll close the the conversation here
and bring it back to council after we have a well,
keep going.
Oh, we at least a couple people need to have a little break.
So we'll take seven minutes.
Please.
Oh oh I guess how you guys.
I don't know what they wanted me to I want to turn over and have
everybody, you know, one way or another can also be myself.
The real.
All right Thank you for coming back in promptly.
Okay.
So with we're bringing this back to council for your comments
and whatever else occurs, do we have a volunteer Yes.
Cookie, thank you.
Thank you to staff and to everyone who came out tonight
to have their voices heard for approving this project is
required under the builders remedy provisions of the housing
Accountability Act.
In considering the project the specific benefits
outweigh the risks of its potential adverse impacts.
There are real and meaningful benefits to this project
and a full list is included in the meeting documents.
For example, approval allows the city to comply with the law
and protects the city from potential liability associated
with noncompliance.
The project provides affordable housing,
helping provide much needed housing will
also helping the city meet its Rina obligations.
The project aligns with California's housing production
goals and the state's broader efforts
to increase the housing supply.
The project provides improvements to pierce Road.
Again, thank you to everyone who participated in this discussion
and shared their perspective for the reasons stated
My vote is to follow the law.
I support staff's recommendation to approve the project.
Thanks.
Thank you.
You.
Anybody else go to you know you want to?
Well, all right.
I'll jump ahead.
I'm not ready, but I'll go for it.
You know, um, a couple of perspectives on this
to Glen's point, we'll share.
How is up, but also give you a sense of a lot of my thinking
and approach to this.
Um, I am in agreement where, per the HOA,
we have to approve this, right?
That that is a consideration here Um,
and I do think by not follow the state law,
right, like we as a city, as a council,
are elected to, you know, help write
the town's ordinances for what we want to see and do here.
But we are also subject to the laws of the state of California,
which do supersede a lot of what we want to do here.
Um, I would say there have been any number of rules and laws
that have been passed in the last couple of years
that do challenge the rational mind on multiple levels.
Right.
Um, this is a project that I think we as a council,
as a city, even as well as several others
have, have been paying attention to just given the location,
given the the hazard zones from a fire safety perspective
and what that all means.
I'll give you a sense of some of the things
that do give me comfort and also some of the considerations
and how I'm thinking about this.
I do appreciate we have approval from county Fire.
They are the experts on this.
They do a tremendous amount of work on this
to make sure that anything that is built
does have the right amount of fire access and requisite water
resources to Put out any kind of fire.
Um, any time you're considering building in a very high fire
hazard, even a moderate zone, I think
you have to be take it very seriously.
Someone mentioned don't take the easy and convenient route
There is nothing easy and convenient about this right out
of the any of us.
Take this lightly.
Even if we are all voting in favor of it
or against it, whatever it is, I know each member of this council
takes what we do up here very seriously.
And the health and safety of that.
But part of that's also related to taking a look at the broader
legal picture.
And what the implications that has for us as a city.
If we choose to not follow the law,
there are financial implications that could actually
quite cripple us.
There are significant housing implications as well,
because we could potentially lose
more control, which is why we're in this position
in the first place.
I do think the improvements our peers road are material,
and we've identified five roadway days
in the hillsides over the last couple of years, many thanks
for public works team.
They're doing everything they can to keep it afloat.
We do not have the funding today to go and fix
all of those right.
We need at least $15 million, if not significantly more.
We've requested grants from federal and state partnered
legislature to legislators to see
if they can help us get there.
And this actually helps us get there in a significant way.
On one of those five areas.
And so that, to me, is quite material
because we're taking sort of like Band-Aid type measures
and have really gotten lucky.
I do think there are multiple risk to consider here.
And so, for example wildfire is one risk,
but earthquake risk was another.
Thinking about have road.
What if a road collapses?
Right.
That's what I mean by like none of this is easier or convenient.
We've been taking a very serious look
at this as a council for a number of years
in terms of what are the overall disasters that we have
to potentially plan for, many of which
are just outside of our control, Right.
We can't control literally where lightning is going to strike.
And I think all of us have been you know,
I remember when there were orange skies, six years ago.
It was terrifying.
Right.
We all to be under evacuation and we didn't
have to evacuate to be ready.
I do think it's a nice development for Saratoga.
It's a good project.
I think it is.
Well done.
It could have been 300 units.
It could have been 500 units.
But I think you're choosing 25 units within that context.
I think that is more reasonable than what
we've seen other folks do, not just in saratoga,
but in the broader state of California.
Yeah, I've you know, been fortunate enough
to meet with residents to meet with Bill,
to meet with anyone who's really reached out
to have a conversation.
I just want to be in listening mode.
I do agree that legislation is a potential solution here.
But again, to Richard's point, I just
did some quick reading on this in our break is
is that element of this was a specific local legislature
or legislator that was able to get that through the state.
And so I don't I think that is a viable solution.
But it requires a pretty major investment and a lot of things
have to come together.
And to be clear, we've all had this conversation, right,
with our with our own legislators about,
hey what can we do here?
Because we do significant things.
There is a significant risk, in our hillsides,
the last thing I'll say is if you're here
and you're concerned about this, I
hope you are meeting with your neighborhood
around starting the Firewise community,
because there are many things that we can be doing.
I think this is just one neighborhood.
We're talking about.
But given all the things that have been mentioned
from a legal perspective of, especially when
it comes to the housing accountability of HOA,
when it comes to, you know, provisions of the borders
remedy, and also the fact that I think this
is a decent development for the area.
I will be voting in favor of it.
Thank you.
Yeah Once again, I want to thank everyone
for taking your time to write to us
and speaking with us on this opt on this project I know how much
concern.
This project has raised, particularly regarding
file safety and emergency evacuation I have heard you.
I understand those concerns.
Public safety has always been our city's top priority
but we also have to consider the legal constraints before us.
This project qualifies for the builder's remedy under the,
you know, a as we all have heard,
we have no legal base to deny this project This project would
provide 24, 25 housing units, including five affordable units,
to help us meet our city's rina obligations.
You know, this project also dedicate a public trail
and also include a site specific wildfire protection plan
and also help us I think it's there's a provision that also
to improvements to Pierce Road and contribution
towards the retaining wall by.
But I do want to make it clear that proving this project
does not mean we dismiss the fire and evacuation concerns
raised by our residents.
I share those concerns.
But as elected officials we have a responsibility
to follow the law.
Even when the choices are difficult. Given the legal
and the financial risks of denying a project that we do not
have a lawful basis to deny I believe
approval is a responsible choice that we can make today.
So I will be voting to approve this appeal as proposed.
Thank you, Tina.
I understand that by thanking each one of you who came here
tonight spoke those who have reached out earlier
and spoken with me I truly hear your concern,
your concerns about wildfire evacuation,
emergency access are all serious And I have listened to them
carefully.
Those of you who know me know that I don't make
difficult decisions easily.
I take them through.
And this is one of the fairly tough decisions
that I've had to make sitting on this side.
My responsive ability is for the public safety.
My response ability is also for the whole city of saratoga.
I have no choice but to follow the oath of office.
I took, which is to uphold the laws of the state of California.
I have to balance the needs of all the sides.
Considering all the implications, the financial
as well as the others You know, this goes against everything
that I hold dear for Saratoga.
I was the mayor who made sure we the city did our job on time
to submit the housing element.
We submitted it on time Most of you
have no idea what I faced from residents who are not
in the hillsides because that council did not
propose a single opportunity site in the hillsides.
The concerns were wildfire.
I do take it seriously It was the state act
that took 24 months to approve our housing
element that zero change in opportunity sites, those builder
remedy projects happened.
Not because the city was not responsible It
is very difficult for me to say this doesn't meet
the general plan but I have to say yes, it's very, very
difficult. I understand the challenges
that the city has legally, financially, I
have to consider the applicant.
I have to think of all the neighborhoods, all of you who
have come here to speak and those who have reached out,
as has been said, the proposal still
does provide improvements on Peirce Road,
some critical improvements for the landslide area.
It's very easy to actually not It's
it's very difficult to for me to be able to weigh
the benefits on the risks.
I actually cannot I will only say I have to comply with
the law.
The builders remedy has been imposed on us
not by somebody sitting in this room,
but by our state legislature.
Was do we have we tried to reach out?
I think everybody has said, starting with our city attorney,
we have reached out to the state legislators multiple times,
Do we have objective design standards currently?
No.
Do we need them?
Yes.
That is why I asked staff a couple of months
ago to bring us a report to continue
for an ordinance for the wildland urban interface area
so that we can set a clear, objective threshold.
So that if there is an increased evacuation in a situation
which we find unacceptable impact,
what are those standards So that something like this
does not happen again?
As the mayor asked earlier, is there in the city,
in the state that has those none.
So I want to reassure you, it is not
that we have ignored anything.
It is the Endless list of state laws
that have been coming at us.
I have spoken with our colleagues in other cities.
I have discussed this at Cities Association
and I am working with other cities to work on this.
In fact, several years ago, Saratoga
did support a statewide ballot initiative
to limit state control We it did not go too far.
So I know this is not the outcome any of you residents
who have come here, you are hoping for.
And I know how deeply matters to you.
It is not a decision I am making lately,
but I have reached this decision based on what I I believe.
And I understand, the law is the way the law is written and has,
as has been presented before us tonight.
So I will be supporting the appeal,
which is in favor of the project as presented.
Thank you I think it's all been said
and I'm going to repeat a few things
and maybe bring up one thing before I do.
I just want to say that prior to this meeting.
I have had conversations with both the President of cran
and with the developer.
So in just to make it full disclosure,
because I figure the more I learn, the better off.
I am.
There are some benefits to this project, certainly not the ones
that we want.
I don't know how a council could sit up here and try
to define an objective standard for evacuation time increases.
As I said before, it's a I'd be hard pressed to say,
oh 25 seconds is okay.
So that's only three homes that one get out and 50s is no good.
I don't think we'd want tens We wouldn't want one second.
We want to make it better than it is.
And this project does a little bit of that.
The Pierce Road will be widened in front
of the whole frontage of this property
or of the project area I think that's really important.
The land movement that has been happening on Pierce Road
is going to be fixed That's a good thing.
That helps to protect us from, other closures because
of other reasons, including fire.
But at the end of the day, I swore
this oath and i swore an oath to uphold
the cost of the state of California,
no matter how I don't like the laws that are included in it.
And I but I have to do that.
And I'm not doing it in lieu of risk or adversity
to Saratoga residents.
I think that everyone that I've spoken to,
everyone that's come forward tonight, I feel your pain
and it irks me that I have to make this decision But I do.
And I think that ultimately, we will
find that we will gather some really great neighbors who
have Harden homes, which we've done another study that
says for every home that gets harden,
three homes don't burn all we've got 25 of them that are harden.
So there's an area that could very well slow down
fire and actually protect more of us.
So we may find that there's some benefits to this.
I'm especially happy that that we've got a zone zero.
I mean, we put it into our code an ember free zone
because Zone zero hadn't been defined.
And I'm so happy that voluntarily you
all chose to do that.
I think that's tremendous.
And and I think that it's going to be beneficial to us
all, even if we don't see it.
But I also will support the staff recommendation which,
by the way, they did have a discussion with H KD our state
earlier this week and the state said
we support the staff recommendation, which
is a to me, it's a kind of a sideways way
of saying don't do anything other than that,
because the worst thing would be that builders remedy can come
back in 22.
More projects come into Saratoga and places
that aren't appropriate.
So I will be supporting the staff recommendation.
And again I thank everyone for coming out
and let's all continue to work together
to make our hillside safer.
Let's build Firewise communities and if we ever get to the point
where a climate resilience district makes
sense for this city I'd love to see it happen.
Thank you.
So now we're looking for a motion.
Below I'll move to approve the appeal of the Planning
Commission decision of IPCC 20 6-3.
Okay Do we have a second one?
Adopt all resolution as speaker.
Multiple to adopt all of the resolutions as recommended.
As recommended by staff.
Beautiful.
And the second I second.
And we have a second.
I'm sorry, it was a second by Councilmember Fitzsimons.
Thank you.
OK All those in favor, please say i i any opposed.
Any abstentions?
Motion carries unanimously.
Thank you.
All very much.
Excuse me.
Where we don't I'm going to do.
So.
Yeah I wanted me committee.
OK.
So now we go to general business item number
one, which is the purchase of electrical equipment
for the Werner Hutton house and the Joan Pisani Community Center
to support facility.
Facility electrification.
Do we have a staff report?
Would any of the council on would a question?
Sure.
Would any councilmembers be open to us deferring some of these
items for next time, or do you want to keep going ?
I know some people have early morning flights
and Yeah, I it's fine.
Do you think we can?
I think we can.
I think we only got I think we can will get through it quick.
Okay.
All right.
One of two.
All right.
Good evening and may your patience.
Make sure Francisco that it's turned on a.
My name is Francisco Alvarez, and I
am I am the facilities maintenance manager.
Tonight, a staff is asking the council to approve 95,100 this
amount amount doesn't include the cell tax to purchase new
electrical heating and cooling equipment for from c h
mechanical for the 1:00 house and US and community center
in 2025.
The city received 483,000 ground from telecom Valley clean energy
transition Essex and gas, electric power equipment with
new electric power heat pumps.
This project support the City Climate Action Plan
and will reduce the city's reliance on natural gas.
The 100 House We will replace the existing gas,
electric H-back equipment.
And we, with a new electric powered heat
pump at the campus and the community center
will replace eight gas, electric units with new electric bike
heat pumps.
Most of these h-back equipment systems
are nearing the end of their useful life.
The grant provides an opportunity
to replace their equipment while reducing the overall cost
to the city to lower the total project costs serious staff.
We propose purchase the equipment directly
and conduct a separate competitive bid
for the installation work.
The Civic Center Theater Heating System
is also included in their overall electrification project.
However, because the system is more complex,
a staff will evaluate design and engineering options
and will return to the City Council with it
as a separate proposal.
If approved tonight, a staff plans
to purchase the equipment in October.
We deliver delivery anticipated in December Construction
is expected to begin next year.
The staff recommend that the city council approve
the purchase of the equipment from CRH Mechanical
and the amount of 95,100.
Again, this amount does not include the sale tax.
Thank you.
And I'm available to answer any questions Do
you have any questions?
I just I just have one question.
I know this wasn't in our budget, so where's the money?
Where is it come from?
I thought we usually got a report that showed what fun.
The money's coming out of and going into something.
Anybody can answer that ryan may be able to.
The total the 493 K for this project
is included in our budget.
It was oh that's right.
It was it was a last job at that at the end.
And the 95 is that just to where's the 90.
Whatever it was.
Is that a component of the 493.
Yes.
So the 95,100 would be reimbursed from those 983,000.
So it'll be reimbursed.
Yes.
So it's just an upfront payment before we get that.
Perfect.
Yeah.
That would come from 493,000.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Okay Thank you very much.
Is there any public comment?
I don't see anybody in the chambers here.
Anybody on line who would like to address the city
council on this item.
Now is a time to raise your hand.
Nice.
You know, hands raised.
All right.
Thank you So I'll bring it back to council.
Maybe I like to make a motion or have a discussion.
I'd like to make a motion to move staff recommendation.
OK Do we have a second?
Second, we have a motion and a second.
Second.
All in favor.
Please say I. I and the opposed.
None.
Opposed any abstentions None of those.
So passes unanimously.
Thank you.
OK.
Item 3.2 Designation of League of California Cities Annual
Conference Voting Delegate and alternates Mayor.
Yes.
Oh, well, go ahead.
I was ready to make a motion.
Oh.
Oh, well, a little bit of stuff.
Hey, I just wanted to say the item before you is, as you know,
the annual conference is taking place in Anaheim,
September 23 through the 25th.
And the city council needs to designate a voting delegate as
well as up to two alternates and that is a very brief staff
report All right.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Oh.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yes.
Is there anyone.
Oh, Any questions of staff ahead Who's attending?
Well, first, what I think all every member of the council,
it is my understanding that all council is attending this year.
I do know, I do have a comment about that.
So with that, be in the comment period, then after that,
none the questions.
OK.
Any other questions of staff?
OK.
We'll open the public comment period.
If there's anyone that would like to speak on this item.
Now would be the time to either raise your virtual hand
or reach down to the podium.
Seeing no one racing and no hands raised on line
confirm that for it.
Nobody's on there.
No hands raised.
Thank you.
We'll close the public comment period
and bring it back to council for discussion or a motion.
I have a comment Go ahead.
So attending this conference is the choice
of each council member.
If they will attend or not.
Cheuk Yan and Belal have less than three months left
on their terms after this conference If I was working
at an organization and knowing that I would be leaving the job
and leaving the organization in less than three months,
I would not ask the organization to pay for the $1,500
conference.
It doesn't seem right.
The organization in this case, the city,
should be paying the $1,500 bill.
But it's the choice of each council member
whether they will attend the conference or not.
And have the city pay for it or not.
Thanks.
To the comments.
Sure.
I'll just provide comment on that.
I understand or appreciate that perspective
I have found the conference to be incredibly valuable in terms
of just like learning coming back
and then sharing those learnings with staff, with other council
members, with residents as well.
And so I actually think that sort of like
given I know I'm throwing off, I want
to go and make the most of it and try
to come back with as many learnings as possible
to share it.
So that's really how I think about it.
But I can understand and appreciate
there are different perspectives on that.
Thank you.
Below.
Yeah.
Anything?
Sure.
I'll show Mary Common on this link of California City's
annual conference for all existing council members.
So it didn't say for future council members.
So I feel even though we only have three months left,
but I put my heart and soul for serving our community,
I feel it's very always if there's a new legal update,
I would like to learn, I would definitely
think it's very helpful for me to doing my job.
And I'm actually ready to make a motion.
If you if you want to make a comment.
OK, go ahead.
I just like to say that some of us
have served on Policy Advisory committees.
I know again, as I have for I think 11 of the 12 years
I've been on council, we have met a lot of people,
learned a lot of things, and many of us
stay active in public service and some either as
a community member that comes forward
and the things we learn at these conferences
can carry us forward with that.
Also related to council policy, we
do have a policy related to how much is allocated for travel
and expenses for each of us each year,
and that is our determination to make.
There's a time and place to change that policy,
and I recommend that if a councilmember would
like to change it, that they bring it up as a council item
and have it considered later.
Some of us have gone to this conference many, many years.
And participated in in policy advisory committee meetings
in Southern California and in Northern California.
And we've never been put in an expense report
to have my reimbursement for the air travel
or the car drive or anything else.
So I just think that people should keep that in mind.
Thank you.
So no emotion.
Anyone from this motion.
I move to I'd like to move to designate our mayor as a voting
delegate and we need to up to two vice mayor as an alternate.
And I don't know allow you want to be the okay so we're just to.
That's what should be good enough
okay the second i'll second okay we have a motion in a second.
Second.
All in favor, please say I, I any opposed.
Any abstentions Oppose opposed.
So we have for one vote.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next up is the annual code update for 2026.
Mr. City Attorney.
So?
So I'll need to recuse myself for Will in a moment, but.
OK.
Let me.
Please.
And I'll and I'll explain what's happening.
So this item is the annual code update.
And tonight, all you are doing is
approving, giving us direction to bring forward
these code amendments.
You are not approving them.
Nothing in the code is changing as a result
of what you do tonight.
You will be telling us.
Yes, we think these are good things to bring forward.
The ones that affect the zoning code
We will take to the Planning Commission
and there will be a public hearing at the Planning
Commission and it will be there.
So I say all this tonight You should definitely tell us
if there are things on here that you think
are controversial and should not be included and proceed
on a separate track.
Tell us.
But you are not committing to vote yes
on what we bring forward.
So that's the overall that I want everyone to hear.
One of these items creates the possibility
of a conflict of interest for a commissioner for Councilmember
Fitzsimons.
It concerns the designation of the village zoning boundary
So she has indicated that she's going to recuse.
When you when somebody when a councilmember has
a conflict on part, they leave.
We discuss that part.
And then they can come back in and discuss all the other items
with you.
OK.
So don't go far And so we're going
to be talking about item 21, right
And so this item will get more attention than it
would otherwise, because I'm not going
to talk about each of them.
I will answer questions of you all.
But this item, we flagged this when we brought forward
the village design standards at the last minute,
we realized that there was a parcel that was cut in half
and so part of the parcel is in.
And part of the parcel was out and we have now
looked into that further and confirmed
that that is indeed the case.
And our proposing based on the characteristics of the parcel
that it be taken out and Cindy can say more Yes.
To this, according to this is this building
was developed in 1950 before the village design guidelines were
created.
It's two residential units.
It's there's no commercial on this property.
It's been that way for at least 30 years.
And the property owner would like
to be taken out of the boundary.
It's I do have a visual, but it's basically a two properties
in from Big basin.
And so if you're looking at the property,
you have resident X to the left and behind you
and then all, you know, all up and down oak
and then to the right, you have another residential unit
and then to the right of that, you
have a couple of small boutique commercial units
and then you have big basin.
We are happy to answer any questions that you have.
So, Cindy, is it on this?
You have a visual maybe that would help me.
Sorry Yeah, I thought I knew where it was.
And now I have lost.
That could be the hour, too OK, so it's the one that's
highlighted in red.
Big basin way is that at the top of this screen?
That's Fifth Street.
So those two that are highlighted and rather
the residential units And then if you go up the map,
you have another residential unit and then you continue going
towards the big basin, you have commercial and then all along
kind of the middle of the map is residential uses room 3,000
and it's a zoning for that So that's Fifth Street.
So yeah, so is the area behind 14 572.
That's One of our district parking lots.
Yes.
And 1455 72 is probably Darla close or no Fifth Street
So you have this is.
Yeah.
Big basin here.
You have commercial.
Commercial.
So this is in the boundary.
This is actually residential and it's actually zoned R on 3,000.
And then these are all are on 3,000.
And then if you continue going up,
it's R and 3,000 and I have another visual and that is
Gala's 14 5.
So yes, that's what I thought.
Thank you.
Yeah, I got it Okay.
So this was the original guidelines
before they were updated in 2019.
And you can see the parcel here.
And then in 2019, we added some new parcels into the boundary
and then this is where it looks like they tried
to make a nice pretty straight line
and they actually cut the property in half.
So half the properties in the boundary and half
is not within the boundary.
And so you can just kind of see that here.
And you can see the parking district.
I mean, the village.
I'm not in the village okay?
That's way clearer.
Thank you All right.
Yes.
So did the property owners ask you
to remove them or is that something you want to clean up?
The the property owners contacted us to notify us
of this discrepancy.
So that they're half and half out.
And then we put the we made it known
at that when we adopted the village design
standards that this would be coming back to you.
And subsequent conversations with the property owners
that they want to be taken out of the boundary
because they are resident uses.
So what is our zoning?
So the zoning is CH1 stage one.
OK.
Thank you.
And the zoning will become it doesn't have to change.
So it could be changed to armed 3,000 to be consistent with
what's happening adjacent.
But it doesn't have to change.
It is a nonconforming use and our non conforming ordinance
allows it to remain okay.
And what does it changing and what does
it allow them to do by right.
So basically, they would not be if so
if they wanted to demolish the residential unit
and rebuild something there.
If they're in the boundary, they need
to comply with the village design standard OK.
Yes.
Tina, So sorry.
Let our if not our room three, what else?
Because I'm understanding they want
to be out of the village or that sort of the way it's going.
I'm open to whatever makes sense.
Just trying to understand because it's half here.
Half there it is.
It is zoned CH1.
So you could, you could actually keep it in the boundary
And if it does get demolished, then it
would be subject to the village design standards.
It's already zoned C each one half of it to see each one.
Yes, ma'am.
What's the other half?
No, no.
The property is zoned C each one.
But the boundary is split.
I think they just wanted to make a nice little straight line
and they didn't really consider that there
was an actual parcel there.
So the property split, which means the parcel
is in two zones.
No, the parcels in one zone, the village line
is going basically it just drew a line
in the middle of the property, didn't
think about going to the around the property boundary.
They just drew a nice straight line
to make the map look straight.
Oh, I see.
OK.
Okay.
As such, the property is in the village,
but the line is not so either.
We clean up the map essentially for the village map,
or we remove the whole parcel out of the village.
Map is that borders.
So the parcel We should clean up the boundary
map whether we're going to keep it in the village boundary
or not.
It needs to be cleaned up.
OK.
Thank you I'm comfortable proceeding.
Do you need to motion for that?
For sure.
Go to any discussion on.
Yes, I need a motion on this one item.
So that when Councilmember Fitzsimons comes back this
is resolved.
A question.
Does this have to be annual code update or does
that you could say this is too controversial.
We want it handled separately.
And that's fine.
The one thing I'll say is, again, you
will have the opportunity to discuss it.
And part of our goal is with the annual code
update is every time we do an ordinance separately,
it takes more time.
And staff is doing a separate staff report There's
a separate public hearing.
There's notice that the separate public hearing.
So we just leave it at that.
Thank you.
OK Motion.
I thought I made one.
And to approve the staff recommendation,
you moved to approve public comment?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I apologize if there's any member of the public who'd
like to speak on this item.
Now, it'd be a great time to come down to the podium
or raise your virtual hand.
See?
No virtual hands and no one in the chambers
will close the public comment.
Period.
Why am I like that thing?
Oh, we had a lot of public comment, which was good OK,
so we've got a motion.
Oh no, we've got a motion coming and we've
got a I'll move to approve the staff
recommendation on item 21 of the village of the code update.
Second.
And we got a motion and a second.
I just like to say I hope that when this is considered
by the Planning Commission, they consider
the ramifications of this change because there
could be some changes to the way a building is developed.
And what it looks like.
And it's really close to our village.
I just say leave it at that.
And hopefully they take care of the rest.
All those in favor please say I, I opposed and no one abstains.
We're good to go.
Thank you.
Motion carries unanimously.
Come on down so as to the rest of the items,
I am not going to go through them one by one.
But if you have questions, I am happy to answer them.
Tina, Question for number.
I believe it's Five for or under that same advisory agency
for subdivision approval.
Yeah.
There the amendment would authorize the community
development Director to approve tentative maps and parcel
maps of four parcels off your resistance.
I can understand the need, but this one.
I'm just wondering if this should be discussed separately.
It's a slightly larger issue.
This is not a clean up.
Think this is versus the one that we discussed a few minutes.
It is up.
Excuse me.
It is up to council.
My thinking in presenting it to you as cleanup
is that it does not take away any of the existing process.
If there is public concern because all the noticing is
the same It's the community development director would
basically have a hearing just the way
the planning commission has a hearing would make the decision.
And then the community development director's decision
could be appealed to the city council
or to the planning Commission and then to the city Council.
So if there was a project there where
there was community concern.
And they didn't like what staff did,
it would go to the Planning Commission
just as it would today.
But if it's noncontroversial, it wouldn't
go to the Planning Commission.
So follow up question.
Yes So this one says only appeal to the planning Commission,
but you're saying it can be further done
the way our code is structured, it would go on further.
Yes.
OK.
Then that saves time and simplifies
the process, streamlines the process.
And if one person makes a decision that people disagree,
then they go through seven member PC and five members.
Okay, great Thanks.
I had a question.
This isn't listed here, but there's
a lot of conversation these days about data centers
with where in our code are zones where the data is be eligible
for, for example, you know, industrial commercial if that's
a big question to answer on the fly,
our code says that if our code does not permit something,
it is not allowed So you have to explicitly name the use for it
to be allowed.
So a data center, well what would happen?
There wouldn't be any lawyer involved.
The data center would ask I to look at our code
and say, how can I build a data center there?
And then they would apply.
And we spend a lot of time.
And then they'd hire a lawyer and a lawyer would
say, What were you thinking?
That's just a little editorial.
But so my guess is that they would not
be allowed in Saratoga.
But I can look into it more closely
and let you know offline if I thought
residents are open to it.
For a fellow council member is open to us explicitly
looking into what a provision would look like for not having
data centers that's separate.
That is that, you know, it's a separate
and but we can add things right to the you
can add things I would say that's goes
beyond noncontroversial.
OK all right there for sure.
Okay.
OK.
All right.
They're happy to drop that thing for not for this.
Gotcha.
OK.
Any other questions of staff?
OK.
I'll open the public comment period
and ask any member of the public that's
here in chambers to come on down or if you're watching us
remotely or on your telephone, please
raise your virtual hand or press star, whatever.
So no one will close the public comment period
and bring it back to council for motion or comments on a motion.
I support staff recommend motion.
Is that a motion Yeah, I think that was a motion.
A motion framed as well.
How are we?
We want motion the second.
All in favor, please say i I any oppose any abstentions motion
carries unanimously.
Thank you.
Next up is council assignments and below.
And we start with you.
And I have nothing to report.
All right?
Yeah, I have two meeting to report
First one is the VTA Policy Advisory meeting.
You know what?
I don't think I have anything to report on that one.
The second one I attended it as late
as West Valley Sanitation District for the direct meeting.
And i can report that I don't think I have
anything important to report.
All right, great.
Thank you.
Nothing new to report, right, Tina?
3 meetings.
Okay Sorry.
3 meetings to report.
Citizen Association of Santa Clara County.
The executive committee meeting July 30.
Nothing to report there.
The legislative action Committee meeting on August 13.
We discussed some bills and recommended them
to the board meeting that night.
The third meeting is the city's Association
of Santa Clara County Board meeting on August 13.
And good news, we have a new interim executive director.
The name is Pamela Root Secondly,
the I had a study session on e-bikes
that has been an issue in multiple cities in the county.
And thirdly we had a guest presenting motion